Isherwood, The Berlin Stories

CHRISTOPH ER

H ERWOOD

THE BERLIN STORIES

THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS
GOODBYE TO BERLIN

A New Direc^ons Book Published By James Laughlin

Copyright 1945 by New Directions
Copyright 1954 by N ewt Directions

Manufactured in the United States
by the VaiUBallou Press

New Directions Books are published by James Laughlin
New York Office — 333 Sixth Avenue — N.Y, 14

ABOUT THIS BOOK

From 192&to 1933, 1 lived almost continuously in Berlin, with
only occasional visits to other parts of Germany and to Eng-
land. Already, during that time, I had made up my mind
that I would one day write about the people Fd met and the
experiences I was having. So I kept a detailed diary, which
in due course provided raw material for all my Berlin stories.

My first idea, immediately after leaving Berlin in 1933, was
to transform this material into one huge tightly constructed
melodramatic novel, in the manner of Balzac. I wanted to call
it The Lost. This title, or rather its German equivalent, Die
Verlorenen, seemed to me wonderfully ominous. I stretched
it to mean not only The Astray and The Doomed — ^referring
tragically to the political events in Germany and our epoch
— ^but also “The Lost” in quotation marks — referring satiri-
cally to those individuals whom respectable society shuns in
horror: an Arthur Norris, a von Pregnitz, a Sally Bowles.

Maybe Balzac himself could have devised a plot-structure
which would plausibly contain the mob of characters I
wanted to introduce to my readers. The task was quite be-
yond my powers. What I actually produced was an absurd
jumble of subplots and coincidences which defeated me
whenever I tried to straighten it out on paper. Thank Good-
ness I never did write The Lost!

Just the same, all of these characters had grown together,
like a nest of Siamese twins, in my head, and I could only
separate them by the most delicate operations. There was a
morning of acute nervous tension throughout which I paced
up and down the roof of an hotel in the Canary Islands,
shaping the plot of Mr. Norris and discarding everybody and

V

everything that didn’t belong in it. This was in May, 1934.
A few days later, I set to work on the novel, sitting in the
garden of a pension at Orotava on Tenerife. The pension was
run by a happy-go-lucky Englishman, who used to laugh at
my industry and tell me I ought to go swimming, while I was
still young. ‘‘After all, old boy, I mean to say, will it matter
a hundred years from now if you wrote that yarn or not?”
Relentlessly, at four o’clock every afternoon, he would start
playing records at full blast through the loudspeaker on the
patio, hoping to attract wandering tourists in for .a drink.
They seldom came, but the jazz tunes always put an end to
my day’s work. On August 12, 1 noted in my diary: “Finished
Mr. Norris, The gramophone keeps repeating a statement
about Life with which I do not agree.” I remember how I
raced tlirough that last chapter with one eye on my watch,
determined to get finished before the racket started.

Mr. Norris was published in 1935. In England, the book
bore its correct name: Mr. Norris Changes Trains; but the
American publisher, William Morrow, found this obscure —
so I changed it to The Last of Mr, Norris, a title which should
be followed by a very faint question mark.

Next I wrote the story of Sally Bowles, and it appeared
as a small separate volume in 1937. Three other pieces — The
Nowaks, The Landauers and Berlin Diary: Autumn 1930 —
were published in issues of John Lehmann’s New Writing,
Finally, the complete Goodbye to Berlin was published in
1939.

Goodbye indeed! During those years that followed, the
Berlin I’d known seemed as dead as ancient Carthage. But
1945 came at last, and V-E Day. That summer, New Direc-
tions was getting ready to republish Mr, Norris and Goodbye
to Berlin in one volume. The Berlin Stories, While I was cor-
recting the proofs, a letter, the first in seven years, reached
me from Heinz, my closest “enemy” friend, telling how he had
fought in Russia and later been taken prisoner by the Ameri-
cans. After the fighting was over, the authorities at his POW
camp had more or less allowed him, and a number of others,

to run away, and had later forwarded his mail to his home
address, marked ‘‘Escaped’’! As I read and reread this letter,
the feeling began to work through me painfully and joyfully,
like blood through a numbed leg, that Berlin — or, at any rate,
the Berliners — still existed, after all.

Then, in the summer of 1951, John van Druten decided
that he could make a play out of Sally Bowles. His adapta-
tion, I Am a Camera, was written with his usual skilled speed,
and was I'eady for production that fall. When I arrived in
New York to sit in on rehearsals, I had first to go to a studio
and be photographed, for publicity, with our leading lady,
Julie Harris. I had never met Miss Harris before. I hadn’t
even seen her famous performance in The Member of the
Wedding.

Now, out of the dressing-room, came a slim sparkling-eyed
girl in an absurdly tart-l3ce black satin dress, with a little
cap stuck jauntily on her pale flame-colored hair, and a silly
naughty giggle. This was Sally Bowles in person. Miss Harris
was more essentially Sally Bowles than the Sally of my book,
and much more like Sally than the real girl who long ago
gave me the idea for my character.

I felt half hypnotized by the strangeness of the situation.
“This is terribly sad,” I said to her. “You’ve stayed the same
age while I’ve gotten twenty years older.” We exchanged
scraps of dialogue from the play, ad-libbed new lines,
laughed wildly, hammed and hugged each other, while the

E hotographer’s camera clicked. I couldn’t take my eyes off
er. I was dumbfounded, infatuated. Who was she? What
was she? How much was there in her of Miss Harris, how
much of van Druten, how much of the girl I used to know in
Berlin, how much of myself? It was no longer possible to say.
I only knew that she was lovable in a way diat no human
could ever quite be, since, being a creature of art, she had
been ‘created out of pxire love.

As I watched those rehearsals, I used to think a good deal
— sometimes comically, sometimes sentimentally — about the
relation of art to life. In writing Goodbye to Berlin, I de-
vil

stroyed a certain portion of my real past. I did this deliber-
ately, because I preferred the simplified, more creditable,
more exciting fictitious past which I’d created to take its
place. Indeed, it had now become hard for me to remember
just how things really had happened. I only knew how I
would like them to have happened— that is to say, how I had
made them happen in my stories. And so, gradually, the real
past had disappeared, along with the real Christopher Isher-
wood of twenty years ago. Only the Christopher Isherwood
of the stories remained,

rd never thought about this situation before, because it
had never seemed to have any particular significance. If my
past was artificial, at least it had been entirely my own —
until now. Now John, Julie and the rest of them had suddenly
swooped down on it, and carried bits of it away with them for
their artistic use. Watching my past being thus reinterpreted,
revised and transformed by all these talented people upon
the stage, I said to myself: "*1 am no longer an individui. I
am a collaboration. I am in the public domain.”

After the play had opened successfully gn Broadway, I
went to England. This was my third visit since the end of die
war; and this time, I knew, I must go over to Germany as
well. It was a definite obligation — ^but how I dreaded iti I
dreaded meeting the people Td known and facing the fact
that there was practically nothing I could do to help them. I
dreaded seeing familiar places in ruins. Though my mind
was made up, my unconscious still protested: I developed
symptoms of duodenal ulcer, and nearly broke my leg on a
staircase. Throughout the flight from London, I expected a
crash, and was almost disappointed when we landed safe at
Tempelhofer Feld in a mild snowstorm — a psychosomatic
snowstorm, obviously,” one of my friends commented, later.

I had arrived prepared — overprepared — ^for a shock; and
the drive through the streets wasn’t as depressing as I’d an-
ticipated. As it was night, you couldn’t see much, anyhow,
and it so happened that the houses along our route were less
badly damaged than elsewhere. Indeed, the end of the drive

viil

brought a shock of a different kind; for I found myself among
the new neon-lightede shops and bars of the Kurfuersten-
damm, and entered a modernistic hotel where I was sur-
rounded by thick-necked cigar-smoking businessmen who
might have stepped right out of the cartoons of Georg Grosz.
It was I, not these people, who had changed; for now I could
afford Hio live with them. During my former Berlin existence
as a down-at-heel English teacher, I used to know such
places only from the outside, peering into them as I passed
along the sidewalk with disapproval, moral superiority and
envy.

But in those days (February, 1952) the Kurfuerstendamm
was one of the still few areas of relatively intact prosperity.
At the end of it, the nineteenth-century-Gothic Memorial
Church looked more Gothic than ever in its jaggedly pin-
nacled ruins. The Tauentzienstrasse beyond was like an
avenue of shattered monuments. Through wide gaps between
formless mounds of rubble, you got views over the great
central desert of destruction, and saw the Sieges Saeule ris-
ing forlornly from the treeless, snow-covered plain of the
Tiergarten, which was dotted with bizarre remnants of statu-
ary: a uniformed general, a naked nymph on a horse. In the
background, the skeleton of a railroad station showed up
starkly; and against the blue winter sky, a red flag fluttered
from the Brandenburger Tor, entrance to the Soviet sector.
There was something doubly strange about this landscape.
It is strange enough to see a vast city shattered and dead. It
is far stranger to see one that is briskly and teemingly in-
habited, amidst its ruins. Berlin seemed convinced that it
was alive; and, after a few hours there, you began to agree
that it certainly was.

The street where I used to live is behind the Nollendorf-
platz, about ten minutes' walk from the hotel where I was
staying, f knew that my old landlady, “Frl. Schroeder,” was
still there; we had been corresponding, but I hadn't told her
that I was coming to Berlin for fear of a last-minute disap-
pointment. Even before the war, this was a decayed and for-

ix

bidding district; but when I saw it again I was really awe«
struck. The fronts of the buildings were pitted with shrapnel
and eaten by rot and weather, so that they had that curiously
blurred, sightless look you see on the face of the Sphinx.

Only a very young and frivolous foreigner, I thought,
could have lived in such a place and found it amusing. Hadn t
there been something youthfully heartless in my enjoyment
of the spectacle of Berlin in the early thirties, with its poverty,
its political hatred and its despair? I felt extremely middle-
aged, that morning. The house next to ours had been hit: on
the third floor, a handsome tiled stove still stood in the corner
of a half-room which jutted out over the abyss. With Reverent
feet, I entered the deep dank courtyard, whose floor t&e sun
never strikes, and climbed the musty stairs, dark even in
the daytime, to Frl. Schroeder’s door. The scream she uttered
on recognizing me must have been heard all over the build-
ing.

She looked wonderful; better, now, in her seventies than
in her fifties, and considerably slimmer. ( Her only objection
to my description of her in my stories was that Fd said she
"waddled.”) Yet she had been through as bad a time as any
average Berliner: serious illness, poverty — ^forcing her to
move to this much smaller flat, where she nevertheless had
to have one lodger in the only spare bedroom and another
sleeping in the kitchen — ^then the war, and the last awful year
of bombing, when she and the other tenants lived almost con-
tinuously in the cellar. "There were forty or fifty of us down
there. We used to hold each other in our arms and say at
least we’d all die together. I can tell you, Herr Issyvoo, we
prayed so much we got quite religious.”

And then, with the fall of Berlin, came the Russian soldiers,
searching the houses for arms. Frl. Schroeder thought she had
nothing to fear until, at the last moment, she discovered to her
horror that an Italian lodger, who had run away, Had left a
sporting rifle in his room. Caught wdth it, she would certainly
have been shot; probably the whole building would have
been burned dowm. So she and a woman friend took the

X

rifle apart, hid the pieces under their clothes and set out
for the canal, into which they planned to drop them. This
they finally succeeded in doing, but only after a hair-raising
encounter with some more Russians, who chased them with
erotic intentions.

"Every time I went out on the street, they’d be after me,’’
said Erl. Schroeder, not without a certain complacency. "So
I used to screw up my eyes — ^like this — and make a hump in
my back, and limp. You ought to have seen me, Herr Issyvoo!
Even those Russians didn’t want me any more. I looked like a
regular old hag!”

By the time she had finished her stories, we were both
quite ‘exhausted with laughing and crying, and had drunk a
whole bottle of Liebfraumilch.

Frl. Schroeder could only give me news of two of my old
friends. Bobby the bartender had come through the war
without a scratch, and had gotten married. Otto Nowak,
now a black-market operator, had shown up recently at the
flat, wanting^ to buy some carpets.

"He hadn’t changed one bit. He was very well dressed —

S uite the fine gentleman. There’s a rich woman somewhere in
le background, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh, you can rely on
him to look after himself! And he’s as fresh as ever. I soon
sent him about his business.”

As I listened to all this, I marveled, as one always does, at
the individual’s abihty to be himself and survive, amidst a
huge undifferentiated military mess. This was Frl. Schroeder’s
History of World War II — and its only moral was: "Somehow
or other, life goes on in spite of everything.”

When we said Goodbye, she gave me the brass dolphin-
clock which is referred to on the second page of Goodbye to
Berlin, where I ask, prophetically, how it could ever be de-
stroyed. It couldn’t, apparently — ^for a bomb-blast had hurled
it across flie room and only slightly scratched its green marble
base. It stands now on my writing table in a Californian
garden — and I like to think that it will survive me, and any-
ming that may be dropped on this neighborhood, in the near

xi

or distant future. Meanwhile, I treasure it, as a souvenii' of
my dear friend and as a symbol of th^t indestructible some-
in a place and an environment that resists all outward
change.

The indestructible something — that, I soon realized, was
what I had had to come back to Berlin to look for. And I
seemed to sense it almost at once, in the very air of tjie city
and in the sound of its inhabitants’ voices. Berlin in winter,
like New York, has an atmosphere that is immensely ex-
hilarating. Evening after evening, I left the hotel and wan-
dered from bar to bar, overstimulated and sleepless. And all
I wanted was to speak and hear German. I felt I could never
tire of the rich, confident, well-remembered tones of the Ber-
liner accent; and I was surprised and pleased to discover how
little the idiom and the slang had altered. Berliners love to
talk — ^with a blunt directness which is both rude and friendly
— and even in their grumbling there is a note of pleasure.

Comparing the two cities — the Berlin I knew in the early
thirties and the Berlin I revisited in the early fifties — I have
to admit that the latter is, in many respects, a far more ex-
citing setting for a novel or a sequence of stories. Life in the
Berlin of 1952 had an intensely dramatic doubleness. Here
was a shadow-line cutting a city in half — a frontier between
two worlds at war — across which people were actually being
kidnapped, to disappear into prisons or graves. And yet this
shadow-frontier was being freely crossed in the most hum-
drum manner every day, on foot, in buses, or in electric trains,
by thousands of Berliners commuting back and forth between
tneir work and their homes. Many men and women who lived
in West Berlin were on the black list of the East German
police; and, if the Russians had suddenly marched in, they
couldn’t have hoped to escape. Yet, in this no man’s land
between the worlds, you heard the usual talk about business
and sport, the new car, the new apartment, the new lover.
“My God,” I exclaimed to one of my acquaintances, after
he had been holding forth on such topics for an hour or
more, “one would thhik you lived in Minneapolis!” This was

Xif

said, and taken, as a compliment. Berliners, in those days,
were justifiably a little proud of their sang-froid. They still
have reason to be.

How would Mr. Norris have thrived in these troubled
waters? Would he, perhaps, have found the fish rather too
large and the current too strong for him? Would Sally Bowles
have set her cap at the New Rich of the reconstruction period,
or preferred the American, British and French oflBcers?
Would Otto Nowak have stuck to the black market, or en-
tered the circles of the neo-Nazis? Could Bernhard Landauer
have rebuilt his firm amidst the wreckage — and would he
have cstred to? All that is not for me to say. The ways of my
own life have led me elsewhere. But I hope that some young
foreigner has fallen in love with this later city, and is writing
what happened or might have happened to him there.

Christopher Isherwood
Santa Monica
California
July, 1954

THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS

for

W. H. Auden

CHAPTER ONE

My first impression was that the stranger s eyes were of an
unusually light blue. They met mine for several blank sec-
onds, vacant, unmistakably scared. Startled and innocently
naughty, they half reminded me of an incident I couldn't
quite place; something which had happened a long time ago,
to do with the upper fourth form classroom. They were tiie
eyes of a schoolboy surprised in the act of brealdng one of
the rules.' Not that I had caught him, apparently, at anything
except his own thoughts: perhaps he imagined I could read
them. At any rate, he seemed not to have heard or seen me
cross the compartment from my comer to his own, for he
started violently at the sound of my voice; so violently, in-
deed, that his nervous recoil hit me like a repercussion. In-
stinctively I took a pace backwards.

It was exactly as though we had collided with each other
bodily in the street. We were both confused, both ready to be
apologetic. Smiling, anxious to reassure him, I repeated my
question:

T wonder, sir, if you could let me have a match?''

Even now, he didn't answer at once. He appeared to be
engaged in some sort of rapid mental calculation, while his
fingers, nervously active, sketched a number of flurried ges-
tures round his waistcoat. For all they conveyed, he might
equally have been going to undress, to draw a revolver, or
merely to make sure that I hadn't stolen his money. Then the
moment ©f agitation passed from his gaze like a little cloud,
leaving a clear blue sky. At last he had understood what it
was that I wanted:

"Yes, yes. Er — certainly. Of course."

1

As he spoke he touched his left temple delicately with his
finger-tips, coughed and suddenly smiled. His smile had great
charm.

"Certainly/* he repeated. ‘With pleasure.”

Delicately, with finger and thumb, he fished in the waist-
coat-pocket of his expensive-looking soft grey suit, extracted
a gold spirit-lighter. His hands were white, small and beau-
tifully manicured.

I offered him my cigarettes.

"Er — ^thank you. Thank you ”

"After you, sir.”

"No, no. Please,”

The tiny flame of the lighter flickered between us, as perish-
able as the atmosphere which our exaggerated politeness had
created. The merest breath would have extinguished the one,
the least incautious gesture or word would have destroyed
the other. The cigarettes were both lighted now. We sat back
in our respective places. The stranger was still doubtful of
me. He was wondering whether he hadn’t gone too far, de-
livered himself to a bore or a crook. His timid soul was eager
to retire. I, on my side, had nothing to read. I foresaw a jour-
ney of utter silence, lasting seven or eight hours. I was deter-
mined to talk.

"Do you know what time we arrive at the frontier?”

Looking back on the conversation, this question does not
seem to me to have been particularly unusual. It is true that I
had no interest in the answer; I wanted merely to ask some-
thing which might start us chatting, and which wasn’t, at the
same time, either inquisitive or impertinent. Its effect on the
stranger was remarkable. I had certainly succeeded in arous-
ing his interest. He gave me a long, odd glance, and his fea-
tures seemed to stiffen a little. It was the glance of a poker-
player who guesses suddenly that his opponent holds a
straight flush and that he had better be careful. At length he
answered, speaking slowly and with caution:

"I’m afraid I couldn’t teU you exactly. In about an hour’s
time, I believe ”

2

His glance, now vacant for a moment, was clouded again.
An unpleasant thought seemed to tease him like a wasp; he
moved his head sligiitly to avoid it. Then he added, with sur-
prising petulance:

"All these frontiers . . . such a horrible nuisance.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take this. The thought crossed
my mind that he was perhaps some kind of mild international-
ist; a member of the League of Nations Union. I ventured
encouragingly:

"They .ought to be done away with.”

“I quite agree with you. They ought, indeed.”

There was no mistaking his warmth. He had a large blunt
fleshy nose and a chin which seemed to have slipped side-
ways. It was like a broken concertina. When he spoke, it
jerked crooked in the most curious fashion and a deep cleft
dimple like a wound surprisingly appeared in the side of it.
Above his ripe red cheeks, Ids forehead was sculpturally
white, like marble. A queerly cut fringe of dark grey hair lay
across it, compact, thick and heavy. After a moment s exam-
ination, I realized, with extreme interest, that he was wearing
a wig.

“Particularly,” I followed up my success, “all these red-tape
formab'ties; the passport examination, and so forth.”

But no. This wasn’t right. I saw at once from his expression
that I’d somehow managed to strike a new, disturbing note.
We were speaking similar but distinct languages. This time,
however, the stranger’s reaction was not mistrust. He asked,
with a puzzling air of frankness and unconcealed curiosity:

“Have you ever had trouble here yourself?”

It wasn’t so much the question which I found odd, as the
tone in which he asked it. I smiled to hide my mystification.

“Oh no. Quite the reverse. Often they don’t bother to open
anything; and as for your passport, they hardly look at it.”

“I’m so‘*glad to hear you say that.”

He must have seen from my face what I was thinking, for
he added hastily: “It may seem absurd of me, but I do so hate
being fussed and bothered.”

3

“Of course. I quite understand.’"

I grinned, for I had just arrived at a satisfactory explana-
tion of his behaviour. The old boy was engaged in a little
innocent private smuggling. Probably a piece of silk for his
wife or a box of cigars for a friend. And now, of course, he
was beginning to feel scared. Certainly he looked prosperous
enough to pay any amount of duty. The rich have s-trange
pleasures.

“You haven’t crossed this frontier before, then?” I felt
kindly and protective and superior. I would cheer 'him up,
and, if things came to the worst, prompt him with some plau-
sible lie to soften the heart of the customs officer.

“Of recent years, no. I usually travel by Belgium. For a
variety of reasons. Yes.” Again he looked vague, paused and
solemnly scratched his chin. All at once, something seemed
to rouse him to awareness of my presence: “Perhaps, at this
stage in the proceedings, I ought to introduce myself. Arthur
Norris, Gent. Or shall we say : Of independent means?” He
tittered nervously, exclaimed in alarm: “Don’t get up, I beg.”

It was too far to shake hands without moving. We com-
promised by a polite seated bow from the waist,

“My name’s William Bradshaw,” I said.

“Dear me, you’re not by any chance one of the Suffolk
Bradshaws?”

“I suppose I am. Before the War, we used to live near
Ipswich,”

“Did you really, now? Did you indeed? I used at one time
to go and stay with a Mrs. Hope-Lucas. She had a lovely
place near Matlock. She was a Miss Bradshaw before her
marriage.”

“Yes, that’s right. She was my great-aunt Agnes. She died
about seven years ago.”

“Did she? Dear, dear. I’m very sorry to hear that. ... Of
course, I knew her when I was quite a young man] and she
was a middle-aged lady then. I’m speaking now, mind you,
of ’ninety-eight.”

All this time I was covertly studying his wig. I had never

4

seen one so cleverly made before. At the back of the skull,
where it was brushed in with his own hair, it was wonderfully
matched. Only the parting betrayed it at once, and even this
would have passed muster at the distance of three or four
yards.

“Well, weU,” observed Mr. Norris. “Dear me, what a very
small place the world is.”

“You never met my mother, I suppose? Or my uncle, the
admiral?”

I was. quite resigned, now, to playing the relationships
game. It was boring but unexacting, and could be continued
for hours. Already I saw a whole chain of easy moves ahead
of me — ^uncles, aunts, cousins, their marriages and their prop-
erties, death duties, mortgages, sales. Then on to public
school and university, comparing notes on food, exchanging
anecdotes about masters, famous matches and celebrated
rows. I knew the exact tone to adopt.

But, to my surprise, Mr. Norris didn’t seem to want to play
this game, after all. He answered hurriedly:

“Tm afraid not. No. Since the War, I Ve rather lost touch
with my English friends. My affairs have taken me abroad a
good deal.”

The word “abroad” caused both of us naturally to look out
of the window. Holland was slipping past our viewpoint with
the smoothness of an after-dinner dream: a placid swampy
landscape bounded by an electric tram travelling along the
wall of a dike.

“Do you know this country well?” I asked. Since I had
noticed the wig, I found myself somehow unable to go on
calling him sir. And anyhow, if he wore it to make himself
look younger, it was both tactless and unkind to insist thus
upon the difference between our ages.

“I know Amsterdam pretty well.” Mr. Norris rubbed his
chin with a nervous, fmtive movement. He had a trick of
doing this and of opening his mouth in a kind of snarling
grimace, quite without ferocity, like an old lion in a cage.
“Pretty well, yes.”

5

“I should like to go there very much. It must be so quiet
and peaceful.”

‘‘On the contrary, I can assure you that it s one of the most
dangerous cities in Europe.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Deeply attached as I am to Amsterdam, I shall always
maintain that it has three fatal drawbacks. In the first place,
the stairs are so steep in many of the houses that it requires a
professional mountaineer to ascend them without risking
heart failure or a broken neck. Secondly, there are the cyclists.
They positively overrun the town, and appear to make it a
point of honour to ride without the faintest consideration for
human life. I had an exceedingly narrow escape only this
morning. And, thirdly, there are tiie canals. In summer, you
know . . . most insanitary. Oh, most insanitary. I can t tell
you what Tve sufEered. For weeks on end I was never without
a sore throat.”

By the time we had reached Bentheim, Mr. Norris had
delivered a lecture on the disadvantages of most of the chief
European cities. I was astonished to find how much he had
travelled. He had suffered from rheumatics in Stockholm and
draughts in Kaunas; in Riga he had been bored, in Warsaw
treated with extreme discourtesy, in Belgrade he had been
unable to obtain his favourite brand of tooth-paste. In Rome
he had been annoyed by insects, in Madrid by beggars, in
Marseilles by taxi-horns. In Bucharest he had had an exceed-
ingly unpleasant experience with a water-closet. Constanti-
nople he had found expensive and lacking in taste. The only
two cities of which he greatly approved were Paris and
Athens. Athens particularly. Athens was his spiritual
home.

By now, the train had stopped. Pale stout men in blue
uniforms strolled up and down the platform with that faintly
sinister air of leisure which invests tibe movements of oflScials
at frontier stations. They were not unlike prison warders. It
was as if we might none of us be allowed to travel any farther.

6

Far down the corridor of the coach a voice echoed: **Deutsche
Tass-Kontrolle”

"I think,” said Mr. Norris, smiling urbanely at me, “that one
of my pleasantest memories is of the mornings I used to spend
pottering about those quaint old streets behind the Temple of
Theseus.”

He was extremely nervous. His delicate white hand fiddled
incessantly with the signet ring on his little finger; his uneasy
blue eyes kept squinting rapid glances into the corridor. His
voice rang false; high-pitched in archly forced gaiety, it re-
sembled die voice of a character in a pre-war drawing-room
comedy* He spoke so loudly that the people in the next com-
partment must certainly be able to hear him.

“One comes, quite unexpectedly, upon the most fascinat-
ing little corners. A single column standing in the middle of a
rubbish-heap . . .”

^'Deutsche Pass-Kontrolle. All passports, please.”

An oflScial had appeared in the doorway of our compart-
ment. His voice made Mr. Norris give a slight but visible
jump. Anxious to allow him time to pull himself together, I
hastily oflFered my own passport. As I had expected, it was
barely glanced at.

“I am travelling to Berlin,” said Mr. Norris, handing over
his passport with a charming smile; so charming, indeed, that
it seemed a little overdone. The official did not react. He
merely grunted, turned over the pages with considerable in-
terest, and then, taking the passport out into the corridor,
held it up to the light of the window.

“It s a remarkable fact,” said Mr. Norris, conversationally,
to me, “that nowhere in classical literature will you find any
reference to the Lycabettos Hill.”

I was amazed to see what a state he was in; his fingers
twitched and his voice was scarcely under control. There
were actually beads of sweat on his alabaster forehead. If this
was what he called "Ibeing fussed,” if these were the agonies
he suffered whenever he broke a by-law, it was no wonder
that his nerves had turned him prematurely bald. He shot an

7

instant's glance of acute misery into the corridor. Another
official had arrived. They were examining the passport to-
gether, with their backs turned towards us. By what was
obviously an heroic effort Mr. Norris managed to maintain
his chattily informative tone.

“So far as we know, it appears to have been overrun with
wolves.”

The other official had got the passport now. He looked as
though he were going to take it away with him. His colleague
was referring to a small black shiny notebook. Raising his
head he asked abruptly:

“You are at present residing at Courbierestrasse 168 ?”

For a moment I thought Mr. Norris was going to faint.

“Er— yes ...lam....”

Like a bird with a cobra, his eyes were fastened upon his
interrogator in helpless fascination. One might have supposed
that he expected to be arrested on the spot. Actually, all that
happened was that the official made a note in his book,
grunted again, and turning on his heel went on to the next
compartment. His colleague handed the passport back to Mr.
Norris and said: “Thank you, sir,” saluted politely and fol-
lowed him.

Mr. Norris sank back against the hard wooden seat with a
deep sigh. For a moment he seemed incapable of speech.
Taking out a big white silk handkerchief, he began to dab at
his forehead, being careful not to disarrange his wig.

“I wonder if you'd be so very kind as to open the window,”
he said at lengA, in a faint voice. “It seems to have got dread-
fully stuffy in here all of a sudden.”

I hastened to do so.

“Is there anything I can fetch you?” I asked. “A glass of
water?”

He feebly waved the offer aside. “Most good of you . . .
No. I shah be all right in a moment. My heart isn't quite what
it was.” He sighed: “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.
All this travelling . . . very bad for me.”

“You know, you really shouldn't upset yourself so.” I felt

8

more than ever protective towards him at that moment. This
affectionate protectiveness, which he so easily and danger-
ously inspired in me, was to colour all our future dealings.
"You let yourself be annoyed by trifles.”

"You call that a trifle!” he exclaimed, in rather pathetic
protest.

"Of fourse. It was bound to have been put right in a few
minutes, anyhow. The man simply mistook you for somebody
else of the same name.”

‘Tou really think so?^' He was childishly eager to be reas-
sured.

"What other possible explanation is there?”

Mr. Norris didn’t seem so certain of this. He said dubiously:
"Well — er — none, I suppose.”

"Besides, it often happens, you know. The most innocent
people get mistaken for famous jewel thieves. They undress
them and search them all over. Fancy if they’d done that to
you!”

"Really!” Mr. Norris giggled. "The mere thought brings a
blush to my modest cheek.”

We both laughed. I was glad that I had managed to cheer
him up so successfully. But what on earth, I wondered, would
happen when the customs examiner arrived? For this, if I was
right about the smuggled presents, was the real cause of all
his nervousness. If the little misunderstanding about the pass-
port had upset him so much, the customs officer would most
certainly give him a heart attack. I wondered if I hadn’t bet-
ter mention this straight out and offer to hide the things in
my own suitcase; but he seemed so blissfully unconscious of
any approaching trouble that I hadn’t the heart to disturb
him.

I was quite wrong. The customs examination, when it came,
seemed positively to give Norris pleasure. He showed not the
slightest signs of uneasiness; nor was anything dutiable dis-
covered in his luggage. In fluent German he laughed and
joked with the official over a large bottle of Coty perfume:
"Oh, yes, it’s for my personal use, I can assme you. I wouldn’t

9

part with it for the world. Do let me give you a drop on your
handkerchief. It’s so deliciously refreshing.”

At length it was all over. The train clanked slowly forward
into Germany. The dining-car attendant came down the cor-
ridor, sounding his little gong,

“And now, my dear boy,” said Mr. Norris, “after these
alarms and excursions and your most valuable moral sup-
port, for which Tm more grateful than I can tell you, I hope
you’ll do me the honour of being my guest at lunch.”

I thanked h'm and said that I should be delighted.

When we were seated comfortably in the restaurant-car,
Mr. Norris ordered a small cognac:

“I have made it a general rule never to drink before meals,
but there are times when the occasion seems to demand it.”

The soup was served. He took one spoonful, then called the
attendant and addressed him in a tone of mild reproach.

“Surely you’ll agree that there’s too much onion?” he asked
anxiously. “Will you do me a personal favour? I should like
you to taste it for yourself.”

“Yes, sir,” said the attendant, who was extremely busy, and
whisked away the plate with faintly insolent deference. Mr.
Norris was pained.

“Did you see that? He wouldn’t taste it. He wouldn’t admit
there was anytliing wrong. Dear me, how very obstinate some
people are!”

He forgot this little disappointment in human nature
within a few moments, however. He had begun to study the
wine list witli great care.

“Let me see . . . Let me see , . . Would you be prepared
to contemplate a hock? You would? It’s a lottery, mind you.
On a train one must always be prepared for the worst. I think
we’ll risk it, shall we?”

The hock arrived and was a success. Mr. Norris had not
tasted such good hock, he told me, since his lunch with the
Swedish Ambassador in Vienna last year. And there were
kidneys, his favourite dish. “Dear me,” he remarked with
pleasure, “I find I’ve got quite an appetite. ... If you want

10

to get kidneys perfectly cooked you should go to Budapest.
It was a revelation to me. ... I must say these are really
delicious, don't you agree? Really quite delicious. At first I
thought I tasted that odious red pepper, but it was merely
my overwrought imagination.” He called the attendant: "Will
you please give the chef my compliments and say that I
should like to congratulate him on a most excellent lunch?
Thank you. And now bring me a cigar.” Cigars were brought,
sniffed at, weighed between the finger and thumb. Mr. Nor-
ris finally* selected the largest on the tray: "What, my dear
boy, you don’t smoke them? Oh, but you should. Well, well,
perhaps you have other vices?”

By this time he was in the best of spirits.

"I must say the older I get the more I come to value the
little comforts of this life. As a general rule, I make a point of
travelling first class. It always pays. One gets treated with so
much more consideration. Take to-day, for instance. If I
hadn’t been in a third-class compartment, they’d never have
dreamed of bothering me. There you have the German ofiB-
cial all over. ‘A race of non-commissioned officers,’ didn’t
somebody call them? How very good that is! How true. . . .”

Mr. Norris picked his teeth for a few moments in thought-
ful silence.

"My generation was brought up to regard luxury from an
aesthetic standpoint. Since the War, people don’t seem to feel
that any more. Too often they are merely gross. They take
their pleasures coarsely, don’t you find? At times, one feels
guilty, oneself, with so much unemployment and distress
everywhere. The conditions in Berlin are very bad. Oh, very
bad ... as no doubt you yourself know. In my small way, I
do what I can to help, but it’s such a drop in the ocean.” Mr.
Norris sighed and touched his napkin with his lips.

"And here we are, riding in the lap of luxury. The social
reformers would condenm us, no doubt. All the same, I sup-
pose if somebody didn’t use this dining-car, we should have
all these employees on the dole as well. . . . Dear me, dear
me. Things are so very complex, nowadays.”

11

We parted at the Zoo Station. Mr. Norris held my hand for
a long time amidst the jostle of arriving passengers.

"Awf Wiedersehen, my dear boy. Auf Wiedersehen. I won’t
say good-bye because I hope that we shall be seeing each
other in the very near future. Any little discomforts I may
have suffered on that odious journey have been amply repaid
by the great pleasure of making your acquaintance. And now
I wonder if you'd care to have tea with me at my flat one day
this week? Shall we make it Saturday? Here’s my card. Do
please say you’ll come.”

I promised that I would.

CHAPTER TWO

Mr. Norris had two front doors to his flat. They stood side
by side. Both had little round peep-holes in the centre panel
and brightly polished knobs and brass nameplates. On the
left-hand plate was engraved: Arthur Norris, Private, And
on the right-hand: Arthur Norris. Export and Import.

After a moment’s hesitation, I pressed the button of the
left-hand bell. The bell was startlingly loud; it must have been
clearly audible all over the flat. Nevertheless, nothing hap-
pened. No sound came from within. I was just about to ring
again when I became aware that an eye was regarding me
through the peep-hole in the door. How long it had been
there, I didn’t know. I felt embarrassed and uncertain
whether to stare the eye out of its hole or merely pretend that
I hadn’t seen it. Ostentatiously, I examined the ceiling, the
floor, the walls; then ventured a furtive glance to make sure
that it had gone. It hadn’t. Vexed, I turned my back on the
door altogedier. Nearly a minute passed,

12

When, finally, I did turn round it was because the other
door, the Export and Import door, had opened. A young man
stood on the threshold.

“Is Mr. Norris in?” I asked.

The young man eyed me suspiciously. He had watery
light yellow eyes and a blotched complexion the colour of
porridge. His head was huge and round, set awkwardly on a
short plump body. He wore a smart lounge suit and patent-
leather shoes. I didn’t like the look of him at all.

“Have you an appointment?”

“Yes.” My tone was extremely curt.

At once, the young man s face curved into oily smiles. “Oh,
it’s Mr. Bradshaw? One moment, if you please.”

And, to my astonishment, he closed the door in my face,
only to reappear an instant later at the left-hand door, stand-
ing aside for me to enter the flat. This behaviour seemed all
the more extraordinary because, as I noticed immediately I
was inside, the Private side of the entrance hall was divided
from the Export side only by a thick hanging curtain.

“Mr. Norris wishes me to say that he will be with you in
one moment,” said the big-headed young man, treading deli-
cately across the thick carpet on the toes of his patent-leather
shoes. He spoke very softly, as if he were afraid of being over-
heard. Opening the door of a large sitting-room, he silently
motioned me to take a chair, and withdrew.

Left alone, I looked round me, slightly mystified. Every-
thing was in good taste, the furniture, the carpet, the colour
scheme. But the room was curiously without character. It
was like a room on the stage or in the window of a high-class
furnishing store; elegant, expensive, discreet. I had expected
Mr. Norris’ background to be altogether more exotic; some-
thing Chinese would have suited him, with golden and scar-
let dragons.

The young man had left the door ajar. From somewhere
just outside I heard him say, presumably into a telephone:
“The gentleman is here, sir.” And now, with even greater
distinctness, Mr. Norris’ voice was audible as he replied, from

13

behind a door in the opposite wall of the sitting-room: “Oh,
is he? Thank you.”

I wanted to laugh. This little comedy was so unnecessary
as to seem slightly sinister. A moment later Mr. Norris him-
self came into the room, nervously rubbing his manicured
hands together.

“My dear boy, this is indeed an honour! Delighted to wel-
come you under the shadow of my humble roof -tree.”

He didn’t look well, I thought. His face wasn’t so rosy to-
day, and there were rings under his eyes. He sat down for a
moment in an armchair, but rose again immediately, as if he
were not in the mood for sitting still. He must Have been
wearing a difiFerent wig, for the joins in this one showed as
plain as murder.

“You’d like to see over the flat, I expect?” he asked, nerv-
ously touching his temples with the tips of his fingers.

“I should, very much.” I smiled, puzzled because Mr. Nor-
ris was obviously in a great hurry about something. With
fussy haste, he took me by the elbow, steering me towards the
door in the opposite wall, from which he himself had just
emerged.

“We’ll go this way first, yes.”

But hardly had we taken a couple of steps when there was
a sudden outburst of voices from the entrance hall.

“You can’t. It’s impossible,” came the voice of the young
man who had ushered me into the flat. And a strange, loud,
angry voice answered: “That’s a dirty lie! I teU you he’s
here!”

Mr. Norris stopped as suddenly as if he’d been shot. “Oh
dear!” he whispered, hardly audible. “Oh dear!” Stricken with
indecision and alarm, he stood still in the middle of the room,
as though desperately considering which way to turn. His
grip on my arm tightened, either for support or merely to
implore me to keep quiet.

“Mr. Norris wiB not be back until late this evening.” The
young man’s voice was no longer apologetic, but firm* ’'It’s
no good your waiting.”

14

He seemed to have shifted his position and to be just out-
side, perhaps barring the way into the sitting-room. And, the
next moment, the sitting-room door was quietly shut, with a
click of a key being turned. We were locked in.

"He's in there!” shouted the strange voice, loud and menac-
ing. There was a scuflEing, followed by a heavy thud, as if the
young njan had been flung violently against the door. The
thud roused Mr. Norris to action. With a single, surprisingly
agile movement, he dragged me after him into the adjoining
room. We ^tood there together in the doorway, ready, at any
moment, for a further retreat. I could hear him panting heav-
ily at my :side.

Meanwhile, the stranger was rattling the sitting-room door
as if he meant to burst it open: “You damned swindler!” he
shouted, in a terrible voice. “You wait till I get my hands on
you!”

It was all so very extraordinary that I quite forgot to feel
frightened, although it might well be supposed that the per-
son on the other side of the door was either raving drunk or
insane. I cast a questioning glance at Mr. Norris, who whis-
pered reassuringly: “He'll go away in a minute, I think.” The
curious thing was that, although scared, he didn't seem at all
surprised by what was taking place. It might have been im-
agined, from his tone, that he was referring to an unpleasant
but frequently recurring natural phenomenon; a violent
thunder-storm, for instance. His blue eyes were warily, un-
easily alert. His hand rested on the door handle, prepared to
slam it shut at an instant's notice.

But Mr. Norris had been right. The stranger soon got tired
of rattling the sitting-room door. With an explosion of Berlin
curses, his voice retreated. A moment later, we heard the out-
side door of the flat close with a tremendous bang.

Mr. Norris drew a long breath of relief. “I knew it couldn't
last long,” he remarked with satisfaction. Abstractedly pull-
ing an envelope out of his pocket, he began fanning himself
with it. “So upsetting,” he murmured. “Some people seem to
be utterly lacking in consideration . . . My dear boy, I really

15

must apologize for this disturbance. Quite unforeseen, I as-
sure you.”

I laughed. “That s all right. It was rather exciting.”

Mr. Norris seemed pleased. “Tm very glad you take it so
lightly. It s so rare to find anyone of your age who’s free from
these ridiculous bourgeois prejudices. I feel that we have a
great deal in common.”

“Yes, I think we have,” I said, without, however, being
quite clear as to which particular prejudices he found ridic-
ulous or how they applied to the angry visitor.

“In the course of my long and not uneventful life, I can
truthfully say that for sheer stupidity and obstructiveness, I
have never met anyone to equal the small Berlin tradesman.
I’m not speaking, now, mind you, of the larger firms. They’re
always reasonable: more or less . .

He was evidently in a confidential mood and might have
imparted a good deal of interesting information, had not the
sitting-room door now been unlocked and the young man
with the large head reappeared on the threshold. The sight
of him seemed to disconnect instantly the thread of Mr. Nor-
ris’ ideas. His manner became at once apologetic, apprehen-
sive and vague, as though he and I had been caught doing
something socially ridicmous which could only be passed off
by an elaborate display of etiquette.

“Allow me to introduce; Herr Schmidt — Mr. Bradshaw.
Herr Schmidt is my secretary and my right hand. Only, in
this case,” Mr. Norris tittered nervously, “I can assure you
that the right hand knows perfectly well what the left hand
doeth.”

With several small nervous coughs he attempted to trans-
late this joke into German. Herr Schmidt, who clearly didn’t
understand it, did not even bother to pretend to be amused.
He gave me a private smile, however, which invited me to
join him in tolerant contemptuous patronage of his employ-
er s attempts at humour. I didn’t respond. I had taken a dis-
like to Schmidt already. He saw this, and, at the moment, I
was pleased that he saw it.

16

"Can I speak to you alone a moment?” he said to Mr.
Norris, in a tone which was obviously intended to insult me.
His tie, collar and lounge suit were as neat as ever. I could
see no sign whatever of the violent handling he had appar-
ently just received.

"Yes. Er — ^yes. Certainly. Of course.” Mr. Norris’ tone was
petulant but meek. "You’ll excuse me, my dear boy, a mo-
ment? I Kate to keep my guests waiting, but this litttle matter
is rather urgent.”

He burned across the sitting-room and disappeared
through a third door, followed by Schmidt. Schmidt was
going to tell him the details of the row, of course. I consid-
ered the possibility of eaves-dropping, but decided that it
would be too risky. Anyhow, I should be able to get it out of
Mr. Norris one day, when I knew him better. Mr. Norris did
not give one the impression of being a discreet man.

I looked round me and found that the room in which I had
all this time been standing was a bedroom. It was not very
large, and the available space was almost entirely occupied
by a double bed, a bulky wardrobe and an elaborate dress-
ing-table with a winged mirror, on which were ranged bot-
tles of perfume, lotions, antiseptics, pots of face cream, skin
food, powder and ointment enough to stock a chemist s shop.
I furtively opened a drawer in the table. I found nothing in
it but two lipsticks and an eyebrow pencil. Before I could
investigate further, I heard the door into the sitting-room
open.

Mr. Norris re-entered fussily. “And now, after this most
regrettable interlude, let us continue our personally con-
ducted tour of the royal apartments. Before you, you behold
my chaste couch; I had it specially made for me in London.
German beds are so ridiculously small, I always think. It s
fitted with the best spiral springs. As you observe. I’m con-
servative enough to keep to my English sheets and blankets.
The German feather-bags give me the most horrible night-
mares.”

He talked rapidly with a great show of animation, but I

17

saw at once that the conversation with his secretary had de-
pressed him. It seemed more tactful not to refer again to the
stranger’s visit. Mr. Norris evidently wanted the subject to be
dropped. Fishing a key out of his waistcoat pocket, he un-
locked and threw open the door of the wardrobe.

‘I’ve always made it a rule to have a suit for every day of
the week. Perhaps you’ll tell me I’m vain, but you’^ be sur-
prised if you know what it has meant to me, at critical mo-
ments of my life, to be dressed exactly in accordance with
my mood. It gives one such confidence, I think.”

Beyond the bedroom was a dining-room.

“Please admire the chairs,” said Mr. Norris, and added —
rather strangely as I thought at the time; “I may tell you that
this suite has been valued at four thousand marks.”

From the dining-room, a passage led to the kitchen, where
I was introduced to a dour-faced young man who was busy
preparing the tea.

“This is Hermann, my major-domo. He shares the distinc-
tion, with a Chinese boy I had years ago in Shanghai, of being
the best cook I have ever employed,”

“What were you doing in Shanghai?”

Mr. Norris looked vague. “Ah. What is one ever doing
anywhere? Fishing in troubled waters, I suppose one might
call it. Yes . . . I’m speaking now, mind you, of nineteen
hundred and three. Things are very different nowadays. I’m
told.”

We returned to the sitting-room, followed by Hermann
with the tray.

“WeU, well,” observed Mr. Norris, taking his cup, “we live
in stirring times; tea-stirring times.”

I grinned awkwardly. It was only later, when I knew him
better, that I realized that these aged jokes (he had a whole
repertoire of them) were not even intended to be laughed at.
They belonged merely to certain occasions in the routine of
his day. Not to have made one of them would have been like
omitting to say a grace.

18

Having thus performed his ritual, Mr. Norris relapsed into
silence. He must be worrying about the noisy caller again. As
usual, when left to my own devices, I began studying his wig.
I must have been staring very rudely, for he looked up sud-
denly and saw the direction of my gaze. He startled me by
asking simply:

"Is it crooked?”

I blushed scarlet. I felt terribly embarrassed.

"Just a tiny bit, perhaps.”

Then I Jau2:hed outright. We both laughed. At that mo-
ment I could have embraced him. We had referred to the
thing at last, and our relief was so great that we were like two
people who have just made a mutual declaration of love,

"It wants to go a shade more to the left,” I said, reaching
out a helpful hand. "May I . . .”

But this was going too far. "My God, no!” cried Mr. Norris,
drawing back with involuntary dismay. An instant later he
was himself again, and smiled ruefully.

"I’m afraid that this is one of those — er — mysteries of the
toilet which are best performed in the privacy of the boudoir.
I must ask you to excuse me.”

"I’m afraid this one doesn’t fit very well,” he continued,
returning from his bedroom some minutes later. "I’ve never
been fond of it. It’s only my second best ”

"How many have you got, then?”

"Three altogether.” Mr. Norris examined his finger-nails
with a modestly proprietary air.

"And how long do they last?”

"A very short time, Tm sorry to say. I’m obliged to get a
new one every eighteen months or so, and they’re exceedingly
expensive.”

*How much, roughly?”

"Between three and four hundred marks.” He was seriously
informative. "The man who makes them for me lives in Koln
and I’m obliged to go there myself to get them fitted.”

"How tiresome for you.”

19

“It is, indeed.”

“Tell me just one more thing. However do you manage to
make it stay on?”

“There's a small patch with glue on it.” Mr. Norris lowered
his voice a little, as though this were the greatest secret of
all: “Just here.”

“And you find that's sufficient?”

“For die ordinary wear and tear of daily life, yes. All the
same. I’m bound to admit that there have been various oc-
casions in my chequered career, occasions which .1 blush to
think of, when all has been lost.”

After tea, Mr. Norris showed me his study, which lay be-
hind the door on the other side of the sitting-room.

“I've got some very valuable books here,” he told me. “Some
very amusing books.” His tone coyly underlined the words.
I stooped to read the titles: The Girl with the Golden Whip,
Miss Smith's Torture-Chamber, Imprisoned at a Girls'
School, or The Private Dairy of Montague Dawson, Flagel-
lant. This was my first glimpse of Mr. Norris' sexual tastes.

“One day I'll show you some of the other treasures of my
collection,” he added archly, “when I feel I know you well
enough.”

He led the way through into a little office. This, I realized,
was where the unwelcome visitor must have been waiting at
the time of my own arrival. It was strangely bare. There was
a chair, a table, a filing cabinet, and, on die wall, a large map
of Germany. Schmidt was nowhere to be seen.

“My secretary has gone out,” Mr. Norris explained, his un-
easy eyes wandering over the walls with a certain distaste, as
if this room had unpleasant associations for him. “He took the
typewriter to be cleaned. This was what he wanted to see
me about, just now.”

This lie seemed so entirely pointiess that I felt rather of-
fended. I didn't expect him to confide in me, yet; but he
needn't treat me like an imbecile. I felt absolved from any
lingering scruples about asking pointed questions, and said,
widi frank inquisitiveness:

20

“What is it, exactly, that you export and import?”

He took it quite calmly. His smile was disingenuous and
bland.

“My dear boy, what, in my time, have I not exported? I
think I may claim to have exported everything which is — er
— exportable.”

He pulled out one of the drawers of the filing cabinet with
the gesture of a house agent. ‘TThe latest model, you see.”

The drawer was quite empty. “Tell me one of the things
you export,” I insisted, smiling.

Mr. Norris appeared to consider.

“Clocks,” he said at length.

“And where do you export them to?”

He rubbed his chin with a nervous, furtive movement
This time, my teasing had succeeded in its object. He was
flustered and mildly vexed.

“Really, my dear boy, if you want to go into a lot of tech-
nical explanations, you must ask my secretary. I haven't the
time to attend to them. I leave all the more — er — sordid de-
tails entirely in his hands. Yes . .

CHAPTER THREE

A FE^v days after Christmas I rang up Arthur (we called each
other by our Christian names now) and suggested that we
should spend Silvesterabend together.

“My dear William, I shall be delighted, of course. Most de-
lighted ... I can imagine no more charming or auspicious
company in which to celebrate the birth of this peculiarly ill-
omened New Year, I’d ask you to have dinner with me, but

21

unfortunately I have a previous engagement. Now where do
you suggest we shall meet?’’

“What about the Troika?”

“Very well, my dear boy. I put myself in your hands en-
tirely. I fear I shall feel rather out of place amidst so many
young faces. A greybeard with one foot in the tomb. . . .
Somebody say ‘No, no!’ Nobody does. How cruel Youth is.
Never mind. Such is life. . .

When once Arthur had started telephoning it was difficult
to stop him. I used often to lay the receiver on the table for
a few minutes knowing that when I picked it up again he
would still be talking away as fast as ever. To-day, however, I
had a pupil waiting for an English lesson and had to cut him
short.

“Very well. In the Troika. At eleven.”

“That will suit me admirably. In the meantime, I shall
be careful what I eat, go to bed early and generally prepare
myself to enjoy an evening of Wein, Weib, und Gesang. More
particularly Wein. Yes. God bless you, dear boy. Good-bye.”

On New Year’s Eve I had supper at home with my land-
lady and the other lodgers. I must have been already drunk
when I arrived at the Troika, because I remember getting a
shock when I looked into the cloakroom mirror and found
that I was wearing a false nose. The place was crammed. It
was difficult to say who was dancing and who was merely
standing up. After hunting about for some time, I came upon
Arthur in a comer. He was sitting at a table with another,
rather younger gentleman who wore an eyeglass and had
sleek dark hair.

“Ah, here you are, WilHam, We were beginning to fear
that you’d deserted us. May I introduce two of my most
valued friends to each other? Mr. Bradshaw — Baron von
Pregnitz.”

The Baron, who was fishy and suave, inclined his head.
Leaning towards me, like a cod swimming up through water,
he asked;

22

“Excuse me. Do you know Naples?”

“No. IVe never been there.”

“Forgive me. Tm sorry. I had the feeling that we’d met each
other before.”

“Perhaps so,” I said politely, wondering how he could smile
without dropping his eyeglass. It was rimless and ribbonless
and looked as though it had been screwed into his pink weU-
shaved face by means of some horrible surgical operation.

“Perhaps you were at Juan-les-Pins last year?”

“No, Tm afraid I wasn’t.”

“Yes, I see.” He smiled in polite regret. “In that case I must
beg your pardon.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. We both laughed very heartily.
Arthur, evidently pleased that I was making a good impres-
sion on the Baron, laughed too. I drank a glass of champagne
off at a gulp. A three-man band was playing: Gmss’ mir mein
Hawai, ich bleiV Dir treu, ich hab* Dich gerne. The dancers,
locked frigidly together, swayed in partial-paralytic rhythms
under a huge sunshade suspended from the ceiling and os-
cillating gently through cigarette smoke and hot rising air.

“Don’t you find it a trifle stuffy in here?” Arthur asked anx-
iously.

In the windows were bottles filled with coloured liquids
brilliantly illuminated from beneath, magenta, emerald, ver-
milion. They seemed to be lighting up the whole room. The
cigarette smoke made my eyes smart until the tears ran down
my face. The music kept d)’ing away, then surging up fear-
fully loud. I passed my hand down the shiny black ofl-cloth
curtains in the alcove behind my chair. Oddly enough, they
were quite cold. The lamps were like alpine cowbells. And
there was a fluffy white monkey perched above the bar. In
another moment, when I had drunk exactly the right amount
of champagne, I should have a vision. I took a sip. And now,
with extreme clarity, without passion or malice, I saw what
Life really is. It had something, I remember, to do with the
revolving sunshade. Yes, I murmured to myself, let them
dance. They are dancing. I am glad.

23

“You know, I like this place. Extraordinarily,"" I told the
Baron with enthusiasm. He did not seem surprised.

Arthur was solemnly stifling a belch.

“Dear Arthur, don’t look so sad. Are you tired?""

“No, not tired, William. Only a little contemplative, per-
haps. Such an occasion as this is not without its solemn aspect.
You young people are quite right to enjoy yourselve§. I don’t
blame you for a moment. One has one’s memories.”

“Memories are the most precious things we have,” said the
Baron with approval. As intoxication proceeded, his face
seemed slowly to disintegrate. A rigid area of paralysis
formed round the monocle. The monocle was holding his face
together. He gripped it desperately with his facial muscles,
cocking his disengaged eyebrow, his mouth sagging slightly
at the comers, minute beads of perspiration appearing along
the parting of his thin, satin-smooth dark hair. Catching my
eye, he swam up towards me, to the surface of the element
which seemed to separate us.

“Excuse me, please. May I ask you something?”

“By all means.”

“Have you read Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And tell me, please, how did you like it?”

“Very much indeed.”

“Then I am very glad. Yes, so did I. Very much.”

And now we were all standing up. What had happened?
It was midnight. Our glasses touched.

“Cheerio,” said the Baron, with the air of one who makes a
particularly fehcitous quotation.

“Allow me,” said Arthur, “to wish you both every success
and happiness in nineteen thirty-one. Every success , . ,”His
voice tr^ed off uneasily into silence. Nervously he fingered
his heavy fringe of hair. A tremendous crash exploded from
the band. Like a car which has slowly, laboriously reached
the summit of the mountain railway, we plunged headlong
downwards into the New Year.

24

The events of the next two hours were somewhat confused.
We were in a small bar, where I remember only the ruflBied
plumes of a paper streamer, crimson, very beautiful, stirring
like seaweed in the draught from an electric fan. We wan-
dered through streets crowded with girls who popped teasers
in our faces. We ate ham and eggs in the first-class restaurant
of the Rriedrichstrasse Station. Arthur had disappeared. The
Baron was rather mysterious and sly about this; though I
couldn t understand why. He had asked me to call him Kuno,
and explained how much he admired the character of the
English upper class. We were driving in a taxi, alone. The
Baron told me about a friend of his, a young Etonian. The
Etonian had been in India for two years. On the morning
after his return, he had met his oldest school-friend in Bond
Street. Although they hadn t seen each other for so long, the
school-friend had merely said: “Hullo. Ym afraid I can’t talk
to you now. I have to go shopping with my mother.” “And I
find this so very nice,” the Baron concluded. “It is your Eng-
lish self-control, you see.” The taxi crossed several bridges
and passed a gas-works. The Baron pressed my hand and
made me a long speech about how wonderful it is to be
young. He had become rather indistinct and his English was
rapidly deteriorating. “You see, excuse me, IVe been watch-
ing your reactions the whole evening. I hope you are not
offended?” I found my false nose in my pocket and put it on.
It had got a bit crumpled. The Baron seemed impressed,
“This is all so very interesting for me, you see.” Soon after
this, I had to stop the taxi under a lamp-post in order to be
sick.

We were driving along a street bounded by a high dark
wall. Over the top of the wall I suddenly caught sight of an
ornamental cross. “Good God,” I said. “Are you taking me to
the cemetery?”

The Baron merely smiled. We had stopped; having arrived,
it seemed, at the blackest comer of the night. I stumbled over
something, and the Baron obligingly took my arm. He

25

seemed to have been here before. We passed through an
archway and into a courtyard. There was light here from
several windows, and snatches of gramophone music and
laughter. A silhouetted head and shoulders leant out of one
of the windows, shouted: ""Prosit Neujahrr and spat vigor-
ously. The spittle landed with a soft splash on the paving-
stone just beside my foot. Other heads emerged frojn other
windows. ‘Is that you, Paul, you sow?” someone shouted.
"Red Front!” yelled a voice, and a louder splash followed.
Tliis time, I think, a beer-mug had been emptied. .

Here one of the anassthetic periods of my evening super-
vened. How the Baron got me upstairs, I don’t know. It was
quite painless. We were in a room full of people dancing,
shouting, singing, drinking, shaking our hands and thumping
us on the back. There was an immense ornamental gasolier,
converted to hold electric bulbs and enmeshed in paper fes-
toons. My glance reeled about the room, picking out large or
minute objects, a bowl of claret-cup in which floated an
empty match-box, a broken bead from a necklace, a bust of
Bismarck on the top of a Gothic dresser — holding them for
an instant, then losing them again in general coloured chaos.
In this manner, I caught a sudden startling glimpse of Ar-
thur s head, its mouth open, the wig jammed down over its
left eye. I stumbled about looking for the body and collapsed
comfortably on to a sofa, holding the upper half of a girl.
My face was buried in dusty-smelling lace cushions. The
noise of the party burst over me in thundering waves, like
the sea. It was strangely soothing. “Don’t go to sleep, dar-
ling,” said the girl I was holding. “No, of course I wont,” I
replied, and sat up, tidying my hair. I felt suddenly, quite
sober.

Opposite me, in a big armchair, sat Arthur, with a thin,
dark, sulky-looking girl on his lap. He had taken off his coat
and waistcoat and looked most domestic. He wore gaudily
striped braces. His shirt-sleeves were looped up with elastic
bands. Except for a little hair round the base of the skull,
he was perfectly bald.

26

“What on earth have you done with it?'’ I exclaimed.
“You’ll catch cold.”

“The idea was not mine, William. Rather a graceful tribute,
don’t you think, to the Iron Chancellor?”

He seemed in much better spirits, now, than earlier in the
evening, and, strangely enough, not at all drunk. He had a
remark^J^ly strong head. Looking up, I saw the wig perched
rakishly on Bismarck’s helmet. It was much too big for him.

Turning, I found the Baron sitting beside me on the sofa.

“Hullo, iCuno,” I said. “How did you get here?”

He dicin’t answer, but smiled his bright rigid smile and
desperately cocked an eyebrow. He seemed on the very point
of collapse. In another moment, his monocle would fall
out.

The gramophone burst into loud braying music. Most of
the people in the room began to dance. They were nearly
all young. The boys were in shirt-sleeves; the girls had un-
hooked their dresses. The atmosphere of the room was heavy
with dust and perspiration and cheap scent. An enormous
woman elbowed her way through the crowd, carrying a glass
of wine in each hand. She wore a pink silk blouse and a very
short pleated white skirt; her feet were jammed into absurdly
small high-heeled shoes, out of which bulged pads of silk-
stockinged flesh. Her cheeks were waxy pink and her hair
dyed tinsel-golden, so that it matched the glitter of the half-
dozen bracelets on her powdered arms. She was as curious
and sinister as a life-size doll. Like a doll, she had staring
china-blue eyes which did not laugh, although her lips were
parted in a smile revealing several gold teeth.

“This is Olga, our hostess,” Arthur explained.

“Hullo, Baby!” Olga handed me a glass. She pinched Ar-
thur’s cheek: “Well, my little turtle-dove?”

The gesture was so perfunctory that it reminded me of a
vet. with a* horse. Arthur giggled: “Hardly what one would
call a strikingly well-chosen epithet, is it? A turtle-dove.
What do you say to that, Anni?” He addressed the dark girl
•on his knee. “You’re very silent, you know. You don’t sparkle

27

this evening. Or does the presence of the extremely hand-
some young man opposite distract your thoughts? William^
I believe you’ve made a conquest. I do indeed.”

Anni smiled at this, a slight self-possessed whore’s smile.
Then she scratched her thigh, and yawned. She wore a
smartly cut little black jacket and a black skirt. On her legs
were a pair of long black boots, laced up to the knee. They
had a curious design in gold running round the tops. They
gave to her whole costume the effect of a kind of uniform.

‘‘Ah, you’re admiring Anni’s boots,” said Arthur, with satis-
faction. “But you ought to see her other pair. Scarlet leather
with black heels. I had them made for her myself. Anni won’t
wear them in the street; she says they make her look too
conspicuous. But sometimes, if she’s feeling particularly ener-
getic, she puts them on when she comes to see me.”

Meanwhile, several of the girls and boys had stopped danc-
ing. They stood round us, dieir arms interlaced, their eyes
fixed on Arthur’s mouth with the naive interest of savages, as
though they expected to see the words jump visibly out of
his throat. One of the boys began to laugh. “Oh yes,” he
mimicked. “I spik you Englisch, no?”

Arthur’s hand was straying abstractedly over Anni’s thigh.
She raised herself and smacked it sharply, with the imper-
sonal viciousness of a cat.

“Oh dear. I’m afraid you’re in a very cruel mood, this eve-
ning! I see I shall be corrected for this. Anni is an exceedingly
severe young lady.” Arthur sniggered loudly; continued con-
versationally in English: “Don’t you think it’s an exquisitely
beautiful face? Quite perfect, in its way. Like a Raphael
Madonna. The otiber day I made an epigram. I said, Anni’s
beauty is only sin-deep. I hope that’s original? Is it? Please
laugh.”

“I think it’s very good indeed.”

“Only sin-deep. I’m glad you like it. My first thought was,
I must tell that to William. You positively inspire me, you
know. You make me sparkle. I always say that I only wish

28

to have three sorts of people as my friends, those who are very
rich, those who are very witty, and those who are very beau-
tiful. You, my dear William, belong to the second cate-
gory.”

I could guess to which category Baron von Pregnitz be-
longed, and looked round to see whether he had been listen-
ing. But the Baron was otherwise engaged. He reclined upon
the farther end of the sofa in the embrace of a powerful
youth in a boxers sweater, who was gradually forcing a
mugful of beer down his throat. The Baron protested feebly;
the beer was spilling all over him.

I became aware that I had my arm round a girl. Perhaps
she had been there all the time. She snuggled against me,
while from the other side a boy was amateurishly trying to
pick my pocket. I opened my mouth to protest, but thought
better of it. Why make a scene at the end of such an enjoy-
able evening? He was welcome to my money. I only had
three marks left at the most. The Baron would pay for every-
thing, anyhow. At that moment, I saw his face with almost
microscopic distinctness. He had, as I noticed now for the
first time, been taking artificial sunlight treatment. The skin
round his nose was just beginning to peel. How nice he was!
I raised my glass to him. His fish-eye gleamed faintly over
the boxer s arm and he made a slight movement of his head.
He was beyond speech. When I turned round, Arthur and
Anni had disappeared.

With the vague intention of going to look for them, I stag-
gered to my feet, only to become involved in the dancing,
which had broken out again with renewed vigour, I was
seized round the waist, roimd the neck, kissed, hugged, tick-
led, half undressed; I danced with girls, with boys, with two
or three people at the same time. It may have been five or
ten minutes before I reached the door at the farther end of
the room. ^Beyond the door was a pitch-dark passage with
a crack of light at the end of it. The passage was crammed
so full of furniture that one could only edge one’ s way along

29

it sideways. I had wriggled and shuflBed about half the dis-
tance, when an agonized cry came from the lighted room
ahead of me.

"‘Nein, nein, Mercy! oh dear! Hilfe! HilfeF*

There was no mistaking the voice. They had got Arthur
in there, and were robbing him and knocking him about. I
might have known it. We were fools ever to have poked our
noses into a place like this. We had only ourselves to thank.
Drink made me brave. Struggling forward to the door, I
pushed it open.

The first person I saw was Anni, She was standing in the
middle of the room. Arthur cringed on the floor at her feet.
He had removed several more of his garments, and was now
dressed, lightly but with perfect decency, in a suit of mauve
silk underwear, a rubber abdominal belt and a pair of socks.
In one hand he held a brush and in the other a yellow shoe-
rag. Olga towered behind him, brandishing a heavy leather
whip.

“You call that clean, you swiner she cried, in a terrible
voice. “Do them again this minute! And if I find a speck of
dirt on them TU thrash you till you canT sit down for a week.*"

As she spoke she gave Arthur a smart cut across the but-
tocks. He uttered a squeal of pain and pleasure, and began
to brush and polish Anni s boots with feverish haste.

“Mercy! Mercy!” Arthur s voice was shrill and gleeful, like
a child's when it is shamming. “Stop! You're killing me.”

“Killings too good for you,” retorted Olga, administering
another cut. “Ill skin you alive!”

“Oh! Oh! Stop! Mercy! Oh!”

They were making such a noise that they hadn't heard me
bang open the door. Now they saw me, however. My pres-
ence did not seem to disconcert any of them in the least.
Indeed, it appeared to add spice to Arthur's enjoyment.

“Oh dear! William, save me! You won't? You're “as cruel as
the rest of them. Anni, my love! Olga! Just look how she
treats me. Goodness knows what they won't be making me
do in a minute!”

30

“Come in, Baby,” cried Olga, with tigerish jocularity. “Just
you wait! It’s your turn next. ITl make you cry for Mummy!”

She made a playful slash at me with the whip which sent
me in headlong retreat down the passage, pursued by Ar-
thur’s delighted and anguished cries.

Sevei;al hours later I woke to find myself lying curled up
on the floor, with my face pressed against the leg of the sofa.
I had a head like a furnace, and pains in every bone. The
party was over. Half a dozen people lay insensible about the
dismantled room, sprawling in various attitudes of extreme
discomfort. Daylight gleamed through the slats of the Ve-
netian blinds.

After making sure that neither Aothur nor the Baron were
among the fallen, I picked my way over their bodies, out of
the flat, downstairs, across the courtyard and into the street.
The whole building seemed to be full of dead drunks. I met
nobody.

I found myself in one of the back streets near the canal,
not far from the Mockernbriicke Station, about half an hour
from my lodgings. I had no money for the electric train. And,
anyhow, a walk would do me good. I limped home, along
dreary streets where paper streamers hung from the sills of
damp blank houses, or were entangled in the clammy twigs
of the trees. When I arrived, my landlady greeted me with
the news that Arthur had rung up already three times to
know how I was.

“Such a nice-spoken gentleman, I always think. And so
considerate.”

I agreed with her, and went to bed.

31

CHAPTER FOUR

Frl. Schroeder, my landlady, was very fond of Arthur. Over
the telephone, she always addressed him as Herr Doktor, her
highest mark of esteem.

“Ah, is that you, Herr Doktor? But of course I recognize
your voice; I should know it in a million. You sound very
tired this morning. Another of your late nights? Na, na, you
can't expect an old woman like me to believe that; I faiow
what gentlemen are when they go out on the spree. . . .
Whafs that you say? Stuff and nonsense! You flatterer! Well,
well, you men are all alike; from seventeen to seventy . . .
Pfuil Vm surprised at you. . . . No, I most certainly shall
not! Ha, ha! You want to speak to Herr Bradshaw? Why, of
course, I'd forgotten. Til call him at once.”

When Arthur came to tea with me, Frl. Schroeder would
put on her black velvet dress, which was cut low at the neck,
and her string of Woolworth pearls. With her cheeks rouged
and her eyelids darkened, she would open the door to him,
looking like a caricature of Mary Queen of Scots. I remarked
on this to Arthur, who was delighted.

“Really, William, you're most unkind. You say such sharp
things. I'm beginning to be afraid of your tongue, I am in-
deed.”

After this he usually referred to Frl. Schroeder as Her
Majesty. La Divine Schroeder was another favourite epithet.

!No matter how much of a hurry he was in, he always found
time for a few minutes' flirtation with her, brought her flow-
ers, sweets, cigarettes, and sympathized with every fluctua-
tion in the delicate health of Hanns, her canary. When Hanns
finally died and Frl. Schroeder shed tears, I thought Arthur

32

was going to cry too. He was genuinely upset. “Dear, dear ”
he kept repeating. "Nature is really very cruel.”

My other friends were less enthusiastic about Arthur. I
introduced him to Helen Pratt, but the meeting was not a
success. At that time Helen was Berlin correspondent to one
of the London political weeklies, and supplemented her in-
come by making translations and giving English lessons. We
sometimes passed on pupils to each other. She was a pretty,
fair-haired, fragile-looking girl, hard as nails, who had been
oducated'at the University of London and took Sex seriously.
She was accustomed to spending her days and nights in male
50 ciety and had little use for the company of other girls. She
could drink most of the English journalists under Ae table,
and sometimes did so, but more as a matter of principle than
because she enjoyed it. The first time she met you, she called
you by your Christian name and informed you that her par-
ents kept a tobacco and sweet shop in Shepherd s Bush. This
was her method of "testing” character; your reaction to the
news damned or saved you finally in her estimation. Above
all else, Helen loathed being reminded that she was a wo-
man; except in bed.

Arthur, as I saw too late, had no technique whatsoever for
dealing with her sort. From the first moment he was frankly
scared of her. She brushed aside all the little polished polite-
nesses which shielded his timid soul. "Hullo, you two,” she
said, casually reaching out a hand over the newspaper she
was reading. (We had met by appointment in a small restau-
rant behind the Memorial Church.)

Arthur gingerly took the hand she offered. He lingered
uneasily beside the table, fidgeted, awaiting the ritual to
which he was accustomed. Nothing happened. He cleared
his throat, coughed:

"Will you allow me to take a seat?”

Helen, who was about to read something aloud from the
newspaper, glanced up at him as though she’d forgotten his
existence and was surprised to find him still there.

"Whats the matter?” she said. "Aren’t there enough
chairs?”

33

We got talking, somehow, about Berlin night life. Arthur
giggled and became arch. Helen, who dealt in statistics and
psycho-analytical terms, regarded him in puzzled disap-
proval. At length Arthur made a sly reference to "‘the spe-
ciality of the Kaufhaus des Westens."’

“Oh, you mean those whores on the corner there,” said
Helen, in the bright matter-of-fact tone of a schoolmistress
giving a biology lesson, “who dress up to excite the boot-
fetishists?”

“Well, upon my soul, ha ha, I must say,” Arthur sniggered,
coughed and rapidly fingered his wig, “seldom have I met
such an extremely, if you 11 allow me to say so, er — advanced,
or shall I say, er — modern young lady . . .”

“My God!” Helen threw back her head and laughed un-
pleasantly. “I haven’t been called a young lady since the
days when I used to help mother with the shop on Saturday
afternoons.”

“Have you — er — been in this city long?” asked Arthur
hastily. Vaguely aware that he had made a mistake, he im-
agined that he ought to change the subject. I saw the look
Helen gave him and knew that all was over.

“If you take my advice, Bill,” she said to me, the next time
we met, “you won’t trust that man an inch.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“Oh, I know you. You’re soft, like most men. You make
up romances about people instead of seeing them as they
are. Have you ever noticed his mouth?”

“Frequently.”

“Ugh, it’s disgusting, I could hardly bear to look at it.
Beastly and flabby like a toad’s.”

“Well,” I said, laughing, “I suppose I’ve got a weakness
for toads.”

Not daunted by this failure, I tried Arthur on Fritz Wendel.
Fritz was a German-American, a young man about town,
who spent his leisure time dancing and playing bridge. He
had a curious passion for the society of painters and writers,
and had acquired a status with them by working at a fashion-
able art defers. The art dealer didn’t pay him anything, but

34

Fritz could afford this hobby, being rich. He had an aptitude
for gossip which amounted to talent, and might have made
a first-class private detective.

We had tea together in Fritz’s flat. He and Arthur talked
New York, impressionist painting, and the unpublished works
of the Wilde group. Arthur was witty and astonishingly in-
formative. Fritz’s black eyes sparkled as he registered the
epigrams for future use, and I smiled, feeling pleased and
proud. I felt myself personally responsible for the success
of the interview. I was childishly anxious that Arthur should
be approved of; perhaps because I, too, wanted to be finally,
completely convinced.

We said good-bye with mutual promises of an early future
meeting. A day or two later, I happened to see Fritz in the
street. From the pleasure with which he greeted me, I knew
at once that he had something extra spiteful to tell me. For a
quarter of an hour he chatted gaily about bridge, night clubs,
and his latest flame, a well-lmown sculptress; his malicious
smile broadening all the while at the thought of the tit-bit
which he had in reserve. At length he produced it.

“Been seeing any more of your friend Norris?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Nothing,” drawled Fritz, his naughty eyes on my face.
“Eventually I’d watch your step, that’s all.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve been hearing some queer things about him.’*

“Oh, indeed?”

“Maybe they aren’t true. You know how people talk.”

“And I know how you listen, Fritz.”

He grinned; not in the least offended: “There’s a story go-
ing round that eventually Norris is some kind of cheap
crook.”

“I must say, I should have thought that ‘cheap’ was hardly
a word one could apply to him.”

Fritz smiled a superior, indulgent smile.

“I dare say it would surprise you to know that he’s been in
prison?”

“What you mean is, it’d surprise me to know that your

35

friends say he’s been in prison. Well, it doesn’t in the least.
Your friends would say anything.”

Fritz didn’t reply. He merely continued to smile.

“What’s he supposed to have been in prison for?” I asked,

“I didn’t hear,” Fritz drawled. “But maybe I can guess.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“Look, Bill, exuse me a moment.” He had changed his tone
now. He was serious. He laid his hand on my shoulder.
“What I mean to say, the thing is this. Eventually, we two,
we don’t give a damn, hell, for goodness’ sake. But we’ve got
other people to consider besides ourselves, haven’t we? Sup-
pose Norris gets hold of some kid and plucks him of his last
cent?”

“How dreadful that would be.”

Fritz gave me up. His final shot was: “Well, don’t say I
didn’t warn you, that’s all.”

“No, Fritz. I most certainly won’t.”

We parted pleasantly.

Perhaps Helen Pratt had been right about me. Stage by
stage I was building up a romantic background for Arthur,
and was jealous lest it should be upset. Certainly, I rather en-
joyed playing with the idea that he was, in fact, a dangerous
criminal; but I am sure that I never seriously believed in it
for a moment. Nearly every member of my generation is a
crime-snob. I was fond of Arthur with an aflEection strength-
ened by obstinacy. If my friends didn’t like him because of
his mouth or his past, the loss was theirs; I was, I flattered
myself, more profound, more humane, an altogether subtler
connoisseur of human nature than they. And if, in my letters
to England, I sometimes referred to him as “a most amazing
old crook,” I only meant by this that I wanted to imagine him
as a glorified being; audacious and self-reliant, reckless and
cahn. All of which, in reality, he only too painfully and ob-
viously wasn’t.

Poor Arthur! I have seldom known anybody with such
weak nerves. At times, I began to believe he must be suffering

36

from a mild form of persecution mania. I can see him now as
he used to sit waiting for me in the most secluded comer of
our favourite restaurant, bored, abstracted, uneasy; his hands
folded with studied nonchalance in his lap, his head held at
an awkward, listening angle, as though he expected, at any
moment, to be startled by a very loud bang. I can hear him
at the telephone, speaking cautiously, as close as possible to
the mouthpiece and barely raising his voice above a whisper.

"Hullo. Yes, it’s me. So you’ve seen that party? Good. Now
when can we meet? Let’s say at the usual time, at the house
of the person who is interested. And please ask that other
one to be there, too. No, no. Herr D. It’s particularly impor-
tant. Good-bye.”

I laughed. "One would think, to hear you, that you were an
arch-conspirator.”

"A very arch conspirator,” Arthur giggled. “No, I assure
you, my dear William, that I was discussing nothing more
desperate than the sale of some old furniture in which I hap-
pen to be — er — ^financially interested.”

"Then why on earth aU this secrecy?”

"One never knows who may be listening.”

"But, surely, in any case, it wouldn’t interest them very
much?”

"You can’t be too careful nowadays,” said Arthur vaguely.

By this time, I had borrowed and read nearly all his "amus-
ing” books. Most of them were extremely disappointing.
Their authors adopted a curiously pmdish, snobby, lower-
middle-class tone, and, despite their sincere efforts to be
pornographic, became irritatingly vague in the most impor-
tant passages. Arthur had a signed set of volumes of My Life
and Loves. I asked him if he had known Frank Harris.

"Slightly, yes. It’s some years ago now. The news of his
death came as a great shock to me. He was a genius in his
own way. So witty, I remember his saying to me, once, in the
Louvre: ‘Ah, my dear Norris, you and I are the last of the
gentleman adventurers.’ He could be very caustic, you know.
People never forgot the things he said about them.

37

“And that reminds me ” continued Arthur meditatively,
“of a question once put to me by the late Lord Disley. ‘Mr.
Norris/ he asked me, ‘are you an adventurer?' "

“What an extraordinary question. I don't call that witty.
It was damned rude of him/'

“I replied: ‘We are all adventurers. Life is an adventure.’
Rather neat, don't you think?"

“Just the sort of answer he deserved."

Arthur modestly regarded his finger-nails.

“I'm generally at my best in the witness-box."

“Do you mean that this was during a trial?"

“Not a trial, William. An action. I was suing the Evening
Tost for hbel.”

“Why, what had they said about you?"

“They had made certain insinuations about the conduct of
a public fund with which I had been entrusted."

“You won, of course?"

Arthur carefully stroked his chin. “They were unable to
make good their accusations. I was awarded five hundred
pounds damages."

“Have you often brought Hbel actions?"

“Five times," Arthur modestly admitted. “And on three
other occasions the matter was settled out of court."

“And you've always got damages?"

“Something. A mere bagatelle. Honour was satisfied."

“It must be quite a source of income."

Arthur made a deprecatory gesture. “I should hardly go
so far as to say that."

This, at last, seemed the moment for my question.

“Tell me, Arthur. Have you ever been in prison?"

He rubbed his chin slowly. Into his vacant blue eyes came
a curious expression. Relief, perhaps. Or even, I fancied, a
certain gratified vanity.

“So you heard of the case?"

“Yes,"IHed.

“It was very widely reported at the time." Arthur modestly
arranged his hands upon die crook of his umbrella. “Did you,

38

you, by any chance, read a full account of the evidenced*

“No. Unfortunately not.”

“That’s a pity. I should have had great pleasure in lending
you the Press cuttings, but unfortunately they were lost in the
course of one of my many moves. I should have liked to hear
your impartial opinion. . . . I consider that the jury was un-
fairly prejudiced against me from the start. Had I had the
experience which I have now I should have undoubtedly been
acquitted. My counsel advised me quite wrongly. I should
have pleaded justification, but he assured me that it would be
quite impossible to obtain the necessary evidence. The judge
was very hard on me. He even went so far as to insinuate that
I had been engaged in a form of blackmail.”

“I say! That was going a bit far, wasn’t it?”

“It was indeed.” Arthur shook his head sadly. “The English
legal mind is sometimes unfortunately unsubtle. It is unable
to distinguish between the finer shades of conduct.”

“And how much . . . how long did you get?”

“Eighteen months in the second division. At Wormwood
Scrubbs.”

“I hope they treated you properly?”

“They treated me in accordance with the regulations. I
can’t complain. . . . Nevertheless, since my release, I have
felt a lively interest in penal reform. I make a point of sub-
scribing to the various societies which exist for that purpose.”

There was a pause, during which Arthur evidendy in-
dulged in painful memories. “I think,” he continued at length,
“I may safely claim that in the course of my whole career I
have very seldom, if ever, done anything which I knew to be
contrary to the law. . . . On the other hand, I do and always
shall maintain that it is the privilege of the richer but less
mentally endowed members of the community to contribute
to the upkeep of people like myself. I hope you’re with me
there?”

“Not being one of the richer members,” I said, “yes.”

“I’m so glad. You know, William, I feel that we might come,
in time, to see eye to eye upon many things. . . . It’s quite

39

extraordinary what a lot of good money is lying about, wait-
ing to be picked up. Yes, positively picked up. Even nowa-
days. Only one must have the eyes to see it. And capital. A
certain amount of capital is absolutely essential. One day I
think I really must teU you about my dealings with an Amer-
ican who believed himself to be a direct descendant of Peter
the Great. If s a most instructive story.”

Sometimes Aithur talked about his childhood. As a boy he
was dehcate and had never been sent to school. An only son,
he lived alone with his widowed mother, whom he adored.
Together they studied literature and art; together they visited
Paris, Baden-Baden, Rome, moving always in the best society,
from Schloss to chdteau, from cMteau to palace, gentle,
charming, appreciative; in a state of perpetual tender anx-
iety about each other’s health. Lying iU in rooms with a con-
necting door, they would ask for their beds to be moved so
that they could talk without raising their voices. Telling
stories, making gay Httle jokes, they kept up each other s spir-
its through weary sleepless nights. Convalescent, they were
propelled, side by side, in batti-chairs, through the gardens
of Lucerne.

This invalid idyll was doomed, by its very nature, soon to
end. Arthur had to grow up; to go to Oxford. His mother had
to die. Sheltering him with her love to the very last, she re-
fused to allow the servants to telegraph to him as long as she
remained conscious. When at length they disobeyed her, it
was too late. Her delicate son was spared, as she had in-
tended, the strain of a death-bed farewell.

After her death, his health improved greatly, for he had to
stand on his own feet. This novel and painful atttitude was
considerably eased by the small fortune he had inherited. He
had money enough to last him, according to the standards of
social London in the ’nineties, for at least ten years. He spent
it in rather less than two. "“It was at that time,” said Arthur,
“that I first learnt the meaning of the word luxury.’ Since
then, I am sorry to say, I have been forced to add others to my
vocabulary; horrid ugly ones, some of them.” “I wish*” he re-

40

marked simply, on another occasion, ""I had that money now.
I should know what to do with it/" In those days he was only
twenty-two and didn't know. It disappeared with magic
speed into the mouths of horses and the stockings of ballet
girls. The pahns of servants closed on it with an oily iron grip.
It was transformed into wonderful suits of clothes which he
presented after a week or two, in disgust, to his valet; into
oriental loiickknacks which somehow, when he got them back
to his flat, turned out to be rusty old iron pots; into land-
scapes of , the latest impressionist genius which by daylight
next morning were childish daubs. Well groomed and witty,
with money to bum, he must have been one of the most eli-
gible yoimg bachelors of his large circle; but it was the
money lenders, not the ladies, who got him in the end.

A stem uncle, appealed to, gmdgingly rescued him, but
imposed conditions. Arthur was to settle down to read for the
Bar. “And I can honestly say that I did try. I can't tell you
the agonies I suffered. After a month or two I was compelled
to take steps.” When I asked what the steps were, he became
uncommunicative. I gathered that he had found some way of
putting his social connections to good use. “It seemed very
sordid at the time,” he added cryptically. “I was such a very
sensitive young man, you know. It makes one smile to think
of it now.

“From that moment I date the beginning of my career;
and, unlike Lot's wife, I have never looked back. There have
been ups and downs . . . ups and downs. The ups are a mat-
ter of European history. The downs I prefer not to remember.
Well, well. As the proverbial Irishman said, I have put my
hand to the plough and now I must lie on it.”

During that spring and early summer, Arthurs ups and
downs were, I gathered, pretty frequent. He was never very
willing to discuss them; but his spirits always sufficiently in-
dicated the state of his finances. The sale of the “old furni-
ture” ( or whatever it really was ) seemed to provide a tempo-
rary respite. And, in May, he returned from a short trip to

41

Paris very cheerful, having, as he guardedly said, “several
little irons in the fire.”

Behind all these transactions moved the sinister, pumpkin-
headed figure of Schmidt. Arthur was quite frankly afraid of
his secretary, and no wonder. Schmidt was altogether too
useful; he had made his master s interests identical with his
own. He was one of those people who have not only a capac-
ity, but a positive appetite for doing their employer s dirty
work. From chance remarks made by Arthur in less discreet
moments, I was gradually able to form a fair idea of the sec-
retary’s duties and talents. “It is very painful for anyone of
our own class to say certain things to certain individuals. It
offends our delicate sensibilities. One has to be so very crude.”
Schmidt, it seemed, experienced no pain. He was quite pre-
pared to say anything to anybody. He confronted creditors
with the courage and technique of a bullfighter. He followed
up the results of Arthur s wildest shots, and returned with
money like a retriever bringing home a duck.

Schmidt controlled and doled out Arthur s pocket-money.
Arthur wouldn’t, for a long time, admit this; but it was ob-
vious. There were days when he hadn’t enough to pay his bus
fare; others when he would say: “Just a moment, William. I
shall have to run up to my flat to fetch something I’d forgot-
ten. You won’t mind waiting down here a minute, will you?”
On such occasions, he would rejoin me, after a quarter of an
hour or so, in the street; sometimes deeply depressed, some-
times radiant, like a schoolboy who has received an unex-
pectedly large tip.

Another phrase to which I became accustomed was: “I’m
afraid I can’t ask you to come up just now. The fiat’s so un-
tidy.” I soon discovered this to mean that Schmidt was at
home. Arthur, who dreaded scenes, was always at pains to
prevent our meeting; for, since my first visit, our mutual dis-
hke had considerably increased. Schmidt, I think, not only
disliked me, but definitely disapproved of me as a hostile and
unsettling influence on his employer. He was never exactly
offensive. He merely smiled his insulting smile and amused

42

himself by coming suddenly into the room on his noiseless
shoes. He would stand there a few seconds, unnoticed, and
then speak, startling Artliur into a jump and a little scream.
When he had done this two or three times in succession, Ar-
thur s nerves would be in such a state that he could no longer
talk coherently about anything and we had to retire to die
nearest pafe to continue our conversation. Schmidt would
help his master on with his overcoat and bow us out of the
flat with ironic ceremony, slyly content that his object had
been achieved.

In June, we went to spend a long week-end with Baron von
Pregnitz; he had invited us to his country villa, which stood
on the shore of a lake in Mecklenburg. The largest room in the
villa was a gymnasium fitted with the most modern appara-
tus, for the Baron made a hobby of his figure. He tortured
himself daily on an electric horse, a rowing-machine and a
rotating massage belt. It was very hot and we all bathed, even
Arthur. He wore a rubber swimming-cap, carefully adjusted
in the privacy of his bedroom. The house was full of hand-
some young men with superbly developed brown bodies
which they smeared in oil and baked for hours in the sun.
They ate like wolves and had table manners which pained
Arthur deeply; most of them spoke with the broadest Berlin
accents. They wrestled and boxed on the beach and did
somersault dives from the spring-board into the lake. The
Baron joined in everything and often got severely handled.
With good-humoured brutality the boys played practical
jokes on him which smashed his spare monocles and might
easily have broken his neck. He bore it all with his heroic
frozen smile.

On the second evening of our visit, he escaped from them
and took a walk with me in the woods, alone. That morning
they had tossed him in a blanket and he had landed on the
asphalt pavement; he was still a bit shaky. His hand rested
heavily on my arm. “When you get to my age,” he told me
sadly, “I think you will find tihat die most beautiful things in

43

life belong to the Spirit. The Flesh alone cannot give us hap-
piness.” He sighed and gave my arm a faint squeeze.

"Our friend Kuno is a most remarkable man,” observed
Arthur, as we sat togetlier in the train on our way back to
Berlin. "Some people believe that he has a great career ahead
of him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he were to be offered
an important post under the next Government.”

"You don’t say so?”

"I think,” Arthur gave me a discreet, sideways glance, "that
he’s taken a great fancy to you.”

"Do you?”

"I sometimes feel, William, that with your talents, it’s a
pity you’re not more ambitious. A young man should make
use of his opportunities. Kuno is in a position to help you in all
sorts of ways.”

I laughed. "To help both of us, you mean?”

"WeU, if you put it in that way, yes. I quite admit that I
foresee certain advantages to myself from the arrangement.
Whatever my faults, I hope I’m not a hypocrite. For instance,
he might make you his secretary.”

"I’m sorry, Arthur,” I said, "but I’m afraid I should find my
duties too heavy ”

CHAPTER FIVE

Towards the end of August, Arthur left Berlin. An air of
mystery surrounded his departure; he hadn’t e<^en told me
that he was thinking of going. I rang up the flat twice, at times
when I was pretty sure Schmidt would not be there. Her-
mann, the cook, knew only that his master was away for an

44

indefinite period. On the second occasion, I asked where he
had gone, and was told London. I began to be afraid that
Arthur had left Germany for good. No doubt he had the best
of reasons for doing so.

One day, however, during the second week in September,
the telephone rang. Arthur himself was on the line.

‘Is that you, dear boy? Here I am, back at last! IVe got
such a lot to tell you. Please don’t say you’re engaged this
evening. You aren’t? Then will you come round here about
half -past six? I think I may add that I’ve got a little surprise
in store for you. No, I shan’t tell you anything more. You must
come and see for yourself. Au revolt!"

I arrived at the flat to find Aurther in the best of spirits.

“My dear William, what a pleasure to see you again! How
have you been getting on? Getting on and getting off?”

Arthur tittered, scratched his chin and glanced rapidly and
uneasily round the room as though he were not yet quite
convinced that all the furniture was still in its proper place.

“What was it like in London?” I asked. In spite of what he
had said over the telephone, he didn’t seem in a particularly
communicative mood.

“In London?” Arthur looked blank. “Ah, yes. London. . . •
To be perfectly frank with you, William, I was not in London.
I was in Paris. Just at present, it is desirable that a slight un-
certainty as to my whereabouts should exist in the minds of
certain persons here.” He paused, added impressively: “I
suppose I may tell you, as a very dear and intimate friend,
that my visit was not unconnected with the Communist
Party.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve become a communist?”

“In all but name, William, yes. In all but name.”

He paused for a moment, enjoying my astonishment. “What
is more, I asked you here this evening to witness what I may
call my Confessio Fidei. In an hour’s time, I am due to speak
at a meeting held to protest against the exploitation of the
Chinese peasantry. I hope you’ll do me the honour of com-
ing.”

45

‘‘Need you ask?”

The meeting was to be held in Neukolln. Arthur insisted on
taking a taxi all the way. He was in an extravagant mood.

“I Feel,” he remarked, “that I shall look back on this eve-
ning as one of the turning-points of my career.”

He was visibly nervous and kept fingering his bunch of
papers. Occasionally he cast an unhappy glance opt of the
taxi window, as though he would have liked to ask the driver
to stop.

“I should think your career has had a good many turning-
points,” I said, to distract his thoughts.

Arthur brightened at once at the implied flattery.

“It has, William. It has, indeed. If my life were going to
end to-night (which I sincerely hope it wont) I could truth-
fully say: ‘At any rate, I have lived. . . .’ I wish you had
known me in the old days, in Paris, just before the War. I had
my own car and an apartment on the Bois. It was one of the
show places of its kind. The bedroom I designed myself, all
in crimson and black. My collection of whips was probably
unique.” Arthur sighed. “Mine is a sensitive nature. I react
immediately to my surroundings. When the sun shines on me,
I expand. To see me at my best, you must see me in my proper
setting. A good table. A good cellar. Art. Music. Beautiful
things. Charming and witty society. Then I begin to sparkle.
I am transformed.”

The taxi stopped. Arthur fussily paid the driver, and we
passed through a large beer-garden, now dark and empty,
into a deserted restaurant, where an elderly waiter informed
us that the meeting was being held upstairs. “Not the first
door,” he added. “That’s the Skittles Club.”

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Arthur. “I’m afraid we must be very
late.”

He was right The meeting had already begun. As we
climbed the broad rickety staircase, we could hear the voice
of a speaker echoing down the long shabby corridor. Two
powerfully built youths wearing hammer-and-sickle armlets
kept guard at the double doors. Arthur whispered a hurried

46

explanation, and they let us pass. He pressed my hand nerv-
ously. ‘Ill see you later, then.” I sat down on the nearest
available chair.

The hall was large and cold. Decorated in tawdry baroque,
it might have been built about thirty years ago and not re-
painted since. On the ceiling, an immense pink, blue and gold
design of .cherubim, roses and clouds was peeled and patched
with damp. Round the walls were draped scarlet banners
with white lettering: ‘‘Arbeiterfront gegen Fascismus und
Krieg,” *‘Wdr fordern Arbeit und Brot'^ ^Arbeiter alter Ldn-
der, vereinigt euchf*

The speaker sat at a long table on the stage facing the audi-
ence. Behind them, a tattered backcloth represented a forest
glade. There were two Chinese, a girl who was taking short-
hand notes, a gaunt man with fuz2y hair who propped his
head in his hands, as if listening to music. In front of them,
dangerously near the edge of the platform, stood a short,
broad-shouldered, red-haired man, waving a piece of paper
at us like a flag.

“Those are the figures, comrades. You’ve heard them. They
speak for themselves, don’t they? I needn’t say any more.
To-morrow you’ll see them in print in the Welt am Abend,
It’s no good looking for them in the capitalist Press, because
they won’t be there. The bosses will keep them out of their
newspapers, because, if they were published, they might
upset the stock exchanges. Wouldn’t that be a pity? Never
mind. The workers will read them. The workers will know
what to think of them. Let’s send a message to our comrades
in China: The workers of the German Communist Party pro-
test against the outrages of the Japanese murderers. The
workers demand assistance for the hundreds of thousands of
Chinese peasants now rendered homeless. Comrades, the
Chinese section of the LA.H. appeals to us for funds to fight
Japanese im'perialism and European exploitation. It’s our
duty to help tiiem. We’re going to help them.”

ITfie red-haired man smiled as he spoke, a militant, trium-
phant smile; his white, even teeth gleamed in the lamplight.

47

His gestures were slight but astonishingly forceful. At mo-
ments it seemed as if the giant energy stored up in his short,
stocky frame would have flung him bodily from the platform,
like an over-powerful motor-bicycle. I had seen his photo-
graph two or three times in the newspaper, but couldn't re-
member who he was. From where I sat, it was difficult to hear
everything he said. His voice drowned itself, filling the large,
damp hall with thundering echoes.

Arthur now appeared upon the stage, shaking hands has-
tily with the Chinese, apologizing, fussing to his chair. A
burst of applause which followed the red-haired man s last
sentence visibly startled him. He sat down abruptly.

During the clapping, I moved up several rows in order to
hear better, squeezing into a place I had seen was empty in
front of me. As I sat down, I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was
Anni, the girl with the boots. Beside her, I recognised the boy
who had poured the beer down Kuno's throat at Olga's on
New Year's Eve. They both seemed pleased to see me. The
boy shook hands with a grip which nearly made me yell out
loud.

The hall was very full. The audience sat there in their
soiled everyday clothes. Most of the men wore breeches with
coarse woollen stockings, sweaters and peaked caps. Their
eyes followed the speaker with hungry curiosity. I had never
been to a communist meeting before, and what struck me
most was the fixed attention of the upturned rows of faces;
faces of the Berlin working class, pale and prematurely lined,
often haggard and ascetic, like ihe heads of scholars, with
thin, fair hair brushed back from their broad foreheads. They
had not come here to see each other or to be seen, or even to
fulfil a social duty. They were attentive but not passive. They
were not spectators. They participated, with a curious, re-
strained passion, in the speech made by the red-haired man.
He spoke for them, he made their thoughts articulate. They
were listening to their own collective voice. At intervals they
applauded it, with sudden, spontaneous violence. Their pas-
sion, their strength of purpose elated me. I stood outside it

48

One day, perhaps, I should be with it, but never of it. At
present I just sat there, a half-hearted renegade from my own
class, my feelings muddled by anarchism talked at Cam-
bridge, by slogans from the confirmation service, by the tunes
the band played when my father s regiment marched to the
railway station, seventeen years ago. And the little man fin-
ished his speech and went back to his place at the table
amidst thunders of clapping,

"Who is he?” I asked.

"Why, dpn’t you know?” exclaimed Anni’s friend in sur-
prise. "That’s Ludwig Bayer. One of the best men we’ve got.’^
The boy’s name was Otto. Anni introduced us and I got
another crushing hand-squeeze. Otto changed places with
her so that he could talk to me.

“Were you at the Sport Palace the other night? Man, you
ought to have heard him! He spoke for two hours and a half
wiSiout so much as a drink of water.”

A Chinese delegate now stood up and was introduced. He
spoke careful, academic German. In sentences which were
like the faint, plaintive twanging of an Asiatic musical instru-
ment, he told us of the famine, of the great floods, of the
Japanese air-raids on helpless towns. "German comrades, I
bring you a sad message from my unhappy countr)^”

"My word!” whispered Otto, impressed. “It must be worse
there than at my aunt’s in the Simeonstrasse.”

It was already a quarter past nine. The Chinese was fol-
lowed by the man with fuzzy hair. Arthiur was becoming im-
patient. He kept glancing at his watch and furtively touching
his wig. Then came the second Chinese. His German was in-
ferior to that of his colleague, but the audience followed the
speeches as eagerly as ever. Arthur, I could see, was nearly
frantic. At length, he got up and went round to the back of
Bayer’s chair. Bending over, he began speaking in an agitated
whisper. Bayer smiled and made a friendly, soothing ges-
ture. He seemed amused. Arthur returned dubiously to his
place, where he soon began to fidget again.

The Chinese finished at last. Bayer at once stood up, took

49

Arthur encouragingly by the arm, as though he were a mere
boy, and led him to the front of the stage.

‘'This is the Comrade Arthur Norris, who has come to
speak to us about the crimes of British Imperialism in the
Far East.”

It seemed so absurd to me to see him standing there that I
could hardly keep a straight face. Indeed, it was difficult for
me to understand why everybody in the hall didn’t burst out
laughing. But no, the audience evidently didn’t find Arthur
in the least funny. Even Anni, who had more reason than any-
one present to regard him from a comic angle, was perfectly
grave.

Arthur coughed, shuffled his papers. Then he began to
speak in his fluent, elaborate German, a little too fast:

“Since that day on which the leaders of the allied govern-
ments saw fit, in their infinite wisdom, to draw up diat, no
doubt, divinely inspired document known as the Treaty of
Versailles; since that day, I repeat . . .”

A slight stir, as if of uneasiness, passed over the rows of
listeners. But the pale, serious, upturned faces were not ironic.
They accepted without question this urbane bourgeois gen-
tleman, accepted his stylish clothes, his graceful rentier wit.
He had come to help them. Bayer had spoken for him. He was
their friend.

“British Imperialism has been engaged, during the last two
hundred years, in conferring upon its victims the dubious
benefits of the Bible, the Bottle and the Bomb. And of these
three, I might perhaps venture to add, the Bomb has been
infinitely the least noxious.”

There was applause at this; delayed, hesitant clapping, as
if Arthur s hearers approved his matter, but were still doubt-
ful of his manner. Evidently encouraged, he continued:

“I am reminded of the story of the Englishman, the Ger-
man and the Frenchman who had a wager as* to which of
them could cut down the most trees in one day. The French-
man was the first to try . ,

At the end of this stoiy there was laughter and loud ap-

50

plause. Otto thumped me violently on the back in his delight
“Mensch! Der spricht priraa, wahrF* Then he bent forward
again to listen, his eyes intent upon the platform, his arm
round Anni s shoulder. Arthur exchanging his graceful ban-
tering tone for an oratorical seriousness, was approaching his
chmax:

‘‘The cries of the starving Chinese peasantry are ringing in
our ears as we sit in this hall to-night. They have come to us
across the breadth of the world. Soon, we hope, they will
sound yet more loudly, drowning the futile chatter of diplo-
matists and the strains of dance bands in luxurious hotels,
where the wives of armament manufacturers finger the pearls
which have been bought with the price of the blood of inno-
cent children. Yes, we must see to it that those cries are clearly
heard by every thinking man and woman in Europe and in
America. For then, and only then, will a term be set to this
inhuman exploitation, this traiEc in living souls. . .

Arthur concluded his speech with an energetic flourish.
His face was quite flushed. Salvo upon salvo of clapping rat-
tled over the hall. Many of the audience cheered. While the
applause was still at its height, Arthur came down from the
platform and joined me at the doors. Heads were turned to
watch us go out. Otto and Anni had left the meeting with us.
Otto wrung Arthur s hand and dealt him terrific blows on the
shoulder with his heavy palm: “Arthur, you old horse! That
was fine!”

“Thank you, my dear boy. Thank you.” Arthur winced.
He was feehng very pleased with himself. “How did they
take it, William? Well, I think? I hope I made my points quite
clearly? Please say I did.”

“Honestly, Arthur, I was astounded.”

“How charming of you: praise from such a severe critic as
yourself is indeed music to my ears.”

“Fd no idea you were such an old hand at it.”

“In my time,” admitted Arthur modestly, “IVe had occa-
sion to do a good deal of public speaking, though hardly
quite of this Idnd.”

51

We had cold supper at the flat. Schmidt and Hermann were
both out: Otto and Anni made tea and laid the table. They
seemed quite at home in the kitchen and knew where every-
thing was kept.

‘‘Otto is Anni’s chosen protector,” Arthur explained, while
they were out of the room. ‘Tn another walk of life, one would
call him her impresario. I believe he takes a certain percent-
age of her earnings. I prefer not to inquire too closely. He s a
nice boy, but excessively jealous. Luckily, not of Annfs cus-
tomers. I should be very sorry indeed to get into his bad
books. I understand that he's the middle-weight champion of
his boxing club.”

At len^ the meal was ready. He fussed round, giving di-
rections.

“Will the Comradess Anni bring us some glasses? How nice
of her. I should like to celebrate this evening. Perhaps, if
Comrade Otto would be so kind, we might even have a little
brandy. I don't know whether Comrade Bradshaw drinks
brandy. You'd better ask him.”

“At such an historic moment, Comrade Norris, I drink any-
thing.”

Otto came back to report that there was no more brandy.

“Never mind,” said Arthur, “brandy is not a proletarian
drink. We'll drink beer.” He filled our glasses. “To the world
revolution.”

“To the world revolution.”

Our glasses touched. Anni sipped daintily, holding the
glass-stem between finger and thumb, her little finger minc-
ingly crooked. Otto drained his at a gulp, banging down the
tumbler heartily on to the table. Arthur's beer went the wrong
way and choked him. He coughed, spluttered, dived for his
napkin.

“I'm afraid that's an evil omen,” I said jokingly. He seemed
quite upset.

“Please don't say that, William. I don't like people to say
things of that kind, even in jest.”

This was the first time I had ever known Arthur to be

52

superstitious. I was amused and rather impressed. He ap-
peared to have got it badly. Could he really have undergone
a sort of religious conversion? It was difficult to believe.

"Have you been a communist long, Arthur?’’ I asked, in
English, as we began to eat.

He cleared his throat slightly, shot an uneasy glance in the
directior^ of the door.

"At heart, William, yes. I think I may say that I have al-
ways felt that, in the deepest sense, we are all brothers. Class
distinctions have never meant anyihing to me; and hatred of
tyranny is in my blood. Even as a small child, I could never
bear injustice of any kind. It offends my sense of the beauti-
ful. It is so stupid and unasstlietic. I remember my feelings
when I was first unjustly punished by my nurse. It wasn’t
the punishment itself which I resented; it was the clumsiness,
the lack of imagination behind it. That, I remember, pained
me very deeply.”

"Then why didn’t you join the Party long ago?”

Arthur looked suddenly vague; stroked his temples with
his finger-tips:

“The time was not ripe. No.”

"And what does Schmidt say to all this?” I asked mis-
chievously.

Arthur gave the door a second hurried glance. As I had
suspected, he was in a state of suspense lest liis secretary
should suddenly walk in upon us.

“I’m afraid Schmidt and I don’t quite see eye to eye on the
subject just at present.”

I grinned. “No doubt you’ll convert him in time.”

“Shut up talking English, you two,” cried Otto, giving me
a vigorous jog in the ribs. **Anni and I want to hear the joke.

During supper we drank a good deal of beer. I must have
been rather unsteady on my feet, because, when I stood up
at the end of the meal, I knocked over my chair. On the under-
side of the seat was pasted a ticket with the printed num-
ber 69.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

53

"Oh, that?” said Arthur hastily; he seemed very much dis-
concerted. “That's merely the catalogue number from the sale
where I originally bought it. It must have been there all this
time. . . . Anni, my love, do you think you and Otto would
be so very kind as to carry some of the things into the kitchen
and put them in the sink? I don t like to leave Hermann too
much to do in the morning. It makes him cross with me for
the rest of the day.”

“What is that ticket for?” I repeated gently, as soon as they
were outside. “I want to know.”

Arthur sadly shook his head.

“Ah, my dear William, nothings escapes your eye. Yet an-
other of our domestic secrets is laid bare.”

“Tm afraid I'm very dense. What secret?”

“I rejoice to see that your young life has never been sullied
by such sordid experiences. At your age, I regret to say, I had
already made the acquaintance of the gentleman whose sign-
manual you will find upon every piece of furniture in tifiis
room.”

“Good God, do you mean the bailiff?”

“I prefer the word Gerichtsvollzieher, It sounds so much
nicer.”

“But, Arthur, when is he coming?”

“He comes, I'm sorry to say, almost every morning. Some-
times in the afternoon as well. He seldom finds me at home,
however. I prefer to let Schmidt receive him. From what I
have seen of him, he seems a person of little or no culture. I
doubt if we should have anything in common.”

“Won t he soon be taking everything away?”

Arthur seemed to enjoy my dismay. He puffed at his ciga-
rette with exaggerated nonchalance.

“On Monday next, I believe.”

“How frightful! CanT anything be done about it?”

“Oh, undoubtedly sometitdng can be done about it. Some-
thing wiU be done about it. I shall be compelled to pay an-
other visit to my Scotch friend, Mr. Isaacs. Mr. Isaacs assures
me that he comes of an old Scotch family, the Inverness

54

Isaacs. The first time I had the pleasure of meeting him, he
nearly embraced me: ‘Ah, my dear Mr. Norris/ he said, you
are a countryman of mine/ ”

“But, Arthur, if you go to a moneylender, youll only get
into worse trouble still. Has this been going on for long? I al-
ways imagined that you were quite rich."

Arthui laughed:

“I am rich, I hope, in the things of the Spirit . . . My dear
boy, please don’t alarm yourself on my account. Ive been
living on my wits for nearly thirty years now, and I propose to
continue doing so until such time as I am called into the, Im
afraid, not altogether approving company of my fathers."

Before I could ask any more questions, Anni and Otto re-
turned from the kitchen. Arthur greeted them gaily and soon
Anni was sitting on his knee, resisting his advances with slaps
and bites, while Otto, having taken off his coat and rolled up
his sleeves, was absorbed in trying to repair the gramo-
phone. There seemed no place for myself in this domestic
tableau and I soon said that I must be going.

Otto came downstairs with a key to let me out of the house
door. In parting, he gravely raised his clenched fist in salute:

“Red Front.”

“Red Front," I answered.

CHAPTER SIX

One morning, not long after this, Frl. Schroeder came shuf-
fling into my room in great haste, to tell me that Arthur was on
the telephone.

“It must be something very serious. Herr Norris didn’t even

55

say good morning to me.” She was impressed and rather hurt.

“Hullo, Arthur. What's the matter?”

“For Heavens sake, my dear boy, don’t ask me any ques-
tions now.” His tone was nervously irritable and he spoke so
rapidly that I could barely understand him. “It’s more than I
can bear. All I want to know is, can you come here at once?”

“Well . . . I’ve got a pupil coming at ten o’clocL”

“Can’t you put him off?”

“Is it as important as all that?”

Arthur uttered a little cry of peevish exasperation: “Is it
important? My dear William, do please endeavour to exer-
cise your imagination. Should I be ringing you up at this un-
earthly hour if it wasn’t important? All I beg of you is a plain
answer: Yes or No. If it’s a question of money, I shall be only
too glad to pay you your usual fee. How much do you
charge?”

“Shut up, Arthur, and don’t be absurd. If it’s urgent, of
course I’ll come. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

I found all the doors of the flat standing open, and walked
in unannounced. Arthur, it appeared, had been rushing wildly
from room to room like a flustered hen. At the moment, he
was in the sitting-room, dressed ready to go out, and nerv-
ously pulling on his gloves. Hermann, on his knees, rum-
maged sulkily in a cupboard in the hall. Schmidt lounged in
the doorway of the study, a cigarette between his lips. He did
not make the least effort to help and was evidently enjoying
his employer’s distress.

“Ah, here you are, William, at last!” cried Arthur, on seeing
me. “I thought you were never coming. Oh dear, oh dear! Is it
as late as that already? Never mind about my grey hat. Come
along, William, come along. I’ll explain everydiing to you on
the way.”

Schmidt gave us an unpleasant, sarcastic smile as we went
out.

When we were comfortably settled on the top of a bus,
Arthur became calmer and more coherent.

56

“First of all/’ he fumbled rapidly in all his pockets and pro-
duced a folded piece of paper: “Please read that.”

I looked at it. It was a Vorladung from the Political Police.
Herr Arthur Norris was requested to present himself at the
Alexanderplatz that morning before one o’clock. What would
happen should he fail to do so was not stated. The wording
was oflBoial and coldly polite.

“Good God, Arthur,” I said, “whatever does this mean?
What have you been up to now?”

In spite* of his nervous alarm, Arthur displayed a certain
modest pride.

“I flatter myself that my association with,” he lowered his
voice and glanced quickly at our fellow passengers, “the rep-
resentatives of the Third International has not been entirely
unfruitful. I am told that my efforts have even excited favour-
able comment in certain quarters in Moscow. . . . I told you,
didn’t I, that I’d been in Paris? Yes, yes, of course. . . . Well,
I had a little mission there to fulfil. I spoke to certain highly
placed individuals and brought back certain instructions.

. . . Never mind that now. At all events, it appears that the
authorities here are better informed than we’d supposed.
That is what I have to find out. The whole question is ex-
tremely delicate. I must be careful not to give anything
away.”

“Perhaps theyll put you through the third degree.”

“Oh, William, how can you say anything so dreadful? You
make me feel quite faint.”

“But, Arthur, surely that would be ... I mean, wouldn’t
you rather enjoy it?”

Arthur giggled: “Ha, ha. Ha, ha. I must say this, William,
that even in the darkest hour your humour never fails to
restore me. . . , Well, well, perhaps if the examination were
to be conducted by Frl. Anni, or some equally charming
young lady, I might undergo it with — er — ^very mixed feel-
ings. Yes.” Uneasily he scratched his chin. “I shall need your
moral support. You must come and hold my hand. And if

57

tills,'' he glanced nervously over his shoulder, “interview
should terminate unpleasantly, I shall ask you to go to Bayer
and tell him exactly what has happened."

“Yes, I will. Of course."

When we had got out of the bus on the Alexanderplatz,
poor Arthur was so shaky that I suggested going into a res-
taurant and drinking a glass of cognac. Seated at a little table
we regarded the immense drab mass of the Praesidium build-
ings from the opposite side of the roadway.

“The enemy fortress,” said Arthur, “into which ^poor little
I have got to venture, all alone."

“Remember David and Goliath."

“Oh, dear. I'm afraid the Psalmist and I have very little in
common this morning. I feel more like a beetle about to be
squashed by a steam-roller. . . . It's a curious fact that, since
my earliest years, I have had an instinctive dislike of the po-
lice. The very cut of their uniforms offends me, and the Ger-
man helmets are not only hideous but somehow rather sin-
ister. Merely to see one of them filling in an oflBcial form in
that inhuman copy-book handwriting gives me a sinking feel-
ing in the stomach."

“Yes, I know what you mean."

Arthur brightened a little.

“I'm very glad I've got you with me, William. You have
such a sympathetic manner. I could wish for no better com-
panion on die morning of my execution. The very opposite of
that odious Schmidt, who simply gloats over my misfortune.
Nothing makes him happier than to be in a position to say —
T told you so.' "

“After all, there's nothing very much they can do to you in
there. They only knock workmen about. Remember, you be-
long to the same class as their masters. You must make them
feel that."

“I'll try," said Arthur doubtfully.

“Have another cognac?"

“Perhaps I will, yes.”

The second cognac worked wonders. We emerged from the

58

restaurant into the still, clammy autumn morning, laughing,
arm in arm.

‘‘Be brave. Comrade Norris. Think of Lenin.’"

“I’m afraid, ha, ha, I find some inspiration in the Marquis
de Sade.'’

But the atmosphere of the police headquarters sobered him
considerably. Increasingly apprehensive and depressed, we
wandered along vistas of stone passages with numbered
doors, were misdirected up and down flights of stairs, col-
lided with hurrying oflBcials who carried bulging dossiers of
crimes. At length we came out into a courtyard, overlooked
by windows with heavy iron bars.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” moaned Arthur. “We’ve put our heads
into the trap this time. I’m afraid.”

At this moment a piercing whistle sounded from above.

“Hullo, Arthur!”

Looking down from one of the barred windows high above
was Otto.

“What did they get you for?” he shouted, jocularly. Before
either of us could answer, a figure in uniform appeared beside
him at the window and hustled him away. The apparition
was as brief as it was disconcerting.

“They seem to have rounded up the whole gang,” I said,
grinning.

“It’s certainly very extraordinary,” said Arthur, much per-
turbed. “I wonder if . .

We passed under an archway, up more stairs, into a honey-
comb of little rooms and dark passages. On each floor were
wash-basins, painted a sanitary green. Arthur consulted his
Vorladung and found the number of the room in which he
was to present himself. We parted in hurried whispers.

“Good-bye, Arthur. Good luck. I’ll wait for you here.”

“Thank you, dear boy. . . . And supposing the worst
comes to the worst, and I emerge from this room in custody,
don’t speak to me or make any sign that you know me unless
I speak to you. It may be advisable not to involve you. . . .
Here’s Bayer’s address; in case you have to go there alone ”

59

certain I shan't/'

“There's one more thing I wanted to say to you/' Arthur
had the manner of one who mounts the steps of the scaffold.
“I'm sorry if I was a little hasty over the telephone this morn-
ing. I was very much upset. ... If this were to be our last
meeting for some time, I shouldn't like you to remember it
against me."

“What rubbish, Arthur. Of course I shan't. Now run along,
and let's get this over."

He pressed my hand, knocked timidly at the door and went
in.

I sat down to wait for him, under a blood-red poster adver-
tising the reward for betraying a murderer. My bench was
shared by a fat Jewish slum-lawyer and his client, a tearful
little prostitute.

“All you've got to remember,” he kept telling her, “is that
you never saw him again after the night of the sixth.”

“But they'll get it out of me somehow,” she sobbed. “I
know they will. It's the way they look at you. And then they
ask you a question so suddenly. You've no time to think.”

It was nearly an hour before Arthur reappeared. I could
see at once from his face that the interview hadn't been so
bad as he'd anticipated. He was in a great hurry.

“Come along, William. Come along. I don't care to stay
here any longer than I need.”

Outside in the street, he hailed a taxi and told the chauffeur
to drive to the Hotel Kaiserhof, adding, as he nearly always
did:

“There's no need to drive too fast.”

^The Kaiserhof!” I exclaimed. “Are we going to pay a call
on Hitler?”

“No, William. We are not . . . although, I admit, I derive
a certain pleasure from dallying in the camp of the enemy.
Do you know, I have lately made a point of being manicured
Ihere? They have a very good man. To-day, however, I have
a quite different object. Bayer's o£Bce is also in the Wilhelm-

60

strasse. It didn’t seem altogether discreet to drive directly
from here to there.”

Accordingly, we performed the comedy of entering the
hotel, drinking a cup of coffee in the lounge and glancing
through the morning papers. To my disappointment, we
didn’t see Hitler or any of the other Nazi leaders. Ten min-
utes latf r, we came out again into the street. I found myself
squinting rapidly to right and left, in search of possible de-
tectives. ArAur s police-obsession was exceedingly catch-
ing,

Bayer inhabited a large untidy flat on the top floor of one
of the shabbier houses beyond the Zimmerstrasse. It was
certainly a striking enough contrast to what Arthur called
“the camp of the enemy,” die padded, sombre, luxurious hotel
we had just left. The door of the flat stood permanently ajar.
Inside, the walls were hung with posters in German and Rus-
sian, notices of mass meetings and demonstrations, anti-war
cartoons, maps of industrial areas and graphs to illustrate the
dimensions and progress of strikes. There were no carpets on
the bare unpainted floor-boards. The rooms echoed to the
rattle of typewriters. Men and women of all ages wandered in
and out or sat chatting on upturned sugar-boxes waiting for
interviews; patient, good-humoured, quite at home. Every-
body seemed to know everybody; a newcomer was greet^
almost invariably by his or her Christian name. Even stran-
gers were addressed as Thou. Cigarette smoking was general
The floors were littered with crushed-out stubs.

In the midst of this informal, cheerful activity, we found
Bayer himself, in a tiny shabby room, dictating a letter to the
girl whom I had seen on the platform at die meeting in
NeukoUn. He seemed pleased but not especially surprised to
see Arthur.

“Ah, my dear Norris. And what can I do for you?”

He spoke English with great emphasis and a strong foreign
accent. I thought I had never seen anybody with such beau-
tiful teeth.

61

‘Tou have been already to see them?’' he added.

“Yes ” said Arthur. “We’ve just come from there.'’

The girl secretary got up and went out, closing the door
behind her. Arthur, his elegantly gloved hands resting de-
murely in his lap, began to describe his interview with the
officials at the Polizeipraesidium. Bayer sat back in his chair
and listened. He had extraordinarily vivid animal eyes of a
dark reddish brown. His glance was direct, challenging, bril-
liant as if with laughter, but his lips did not even smile. Lis-
tening to Arthur, his face and body became quite still. He did
not once nod, or shift his position, or fidget with his hands.
His mere repose suggested a force of concentration which
was hypnotic in its intensity. Arthur, I could see, felt this also;
he squirmed uneasily on his seat and carefully avoided look-
ing Bayer in the eyes.

Arthur began by assuring us that the officials had treated
him most politely. One of 3iem had helped him off with his
coat and hat, the other had offered him a chair and a cigar.
Arthur had taken the chair, the cigar he had refused; he made
a considerable point of this, as though it were a proof of his
singular strong-mindedness and integrity. Thereupon, the
official, still courteous, had asked permission to smoke. This
Arthur had granted.

There had followed a discussion, cross-examination dis-
guised as chat, about Arthur’s business activities in Berlin.
Arthur was careful not to go into details here. “It wouldn’t
interest you,” he told Bayer. I gathered, however, that the
officials had politely* succeeded in frightening him a good
deal. They were far too well informed.

These preliminaries over, the real questioning began. ‘We
understand, Mr. Norris, that you have recently made a jour-
ney to Paris. Was this visit in connection with your private
business?”

Arthur had been ready for this, of course. Perhaps too
ready. His explanations had been copious. The official had
punctured them with a single affable inquiry. He had named

62

a name and an address which Mr. Norris had twice visited,
on the evening of his arrival and on the morning of his de-
parture. Was this, also, a private business interview? Arthur
didn’t deny that he had had a nasty shock. Nevertheless, he
had been, he claimed, exceedingly discreet. T wasn’t so silly
as to deny anything, of course. I made light of the whole
matter. J think I impressed them favourably. They were
shaken, I could see that, distinctly shaken.”

Arthur paused, added modestly: “I flatter myself that I
know how to handle that particular kind of situation pretty
well. Yes.”

His tone appealed for a word of encouragement, of con-
firmation, here. But Bayer didn’t encourage, didn’t condemn,
didn’t speak or move at all. His dark brown eyes continued to
regard Arthur with the same brilliant attention, smiling and
alert. Arthur uttered a short nervous cough.

Anxious to interest that impersonal, hypnotic silence, he
made a great deal of his narrative. He must have talked for
nearly half an hour. Actually, there wasn’t much to tell. The

E olice, having displayed the extent of their knowledge, had
astened to assure Mr. Norris that his activities did not in-
terest them in the least, provided that these activities were
confined to foreign countries. As for Germany itself, that,
of course, was a different matter. The German Republic
welcomes all foreign guests, but requires them to remem-
ber that certain laws of hospitality govern guest as well
as host. In short, it would be a great pity if the German
Republic were ever to be deprived of the pleasure of
Mr. Norris’ society. The official felt sure that Mr, Norris,
as a man of the world, would appreciate his point of
view.

Finally, just as Arthur was making for the door, having
been helped on with his overcoat and presented with his hat,
came a last question asked in a tone which suggested that
it hadn’t the remotest connection with anything which had
previously been said:

63

“You have recently become a member of the Communist
Party?”

“I saw the trap at once, of course ” Arthur told us. “It was
simply a trap. But I had to think quickly; any hesitation in
answering would have been fatal. They re so accustomed to
notice these details. ... I am not a member of the Com-
munist Party, I said to them, nor of any other Left Wing
organization. I merely sympathize v^th the attitude of the
K.P.D. to certain non-political problems. ... I think that
was the right answer? I think so. Yes.”

At last Bayer both smiled and spoke. “You have acted quite
right, my dear Norris.” He seemed subtly amused.

Arthur was as pleased as a stroked cat.

“Comrade Bradshaw was of great assistance to me.”

“Oh yes?”

Bayer didn’t ask how.

“You have interest for our movement?”

His eyes measured me for the first time. No, he was not
impressed. Equally, he did not condemn. A young bourgeois
intellectual, he thought. Enthusiastic, within certain limits.
Educated, within certain limits. Capable of response if ap-
pealed to in terms of his own class-language. Of some small
use: everybody can do something. I felt myself blushing
deeply.

“I’d like to help you if I could,” I said.

“You speak German?”

“He speaks excellent German,” put in Arthur, like a mother
recommending her son to the notice of the headmaster. Smil-
ingly, Bayer considered me once more.

“So?”

He turned over the papers on his desk.

“Here is some translation which you could be so kind as to
do for us. WiU you please translate this in English? As you
will see, it is a report of our work during the past year. From
it you wiU learn a little about our aims. It should interest you,
I think.”

He handed me a thick wad of manuscript, and rose to his

64

feet. He was even smaller and broader than he had seemed
on the platform. He laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

‘‘Tliis is most interesting, what you have told me.” He
shook hands with both of us, gave a brilliant parting smile:
“And you will please/’ he added comically to Arthur, “avoid
to entangle this young Mr. Bradshaw in your distress.”

“Indeed, I assure you I shouldn’t dream of such a thing.
His safety is almost, if not quite, as dear to me as my own.
. . . Well, ha ha, I won’t waste any more of your vduable
time. Good-bye.”

The interview with Bayer had quite restored Arthur’s spir-
its.

“You made a good impression on him, William. Oh yes,
you did. I could see that at once. And he’s a very shrewd
judge of character. I think he was pleased vdth what I said
to them at the Alexanderplatz, wasn’t he?”

“I’m sure he was.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“I know very little about him, myself, William. I’ve heard
that he began life as a research chemist. I don’t think his
parents were working people. He doesn’t give one that im-
pression, does he? In any case, Bayer isn’t his real name.”

After this meeting, I felt anxious to see Bayer again. I did
the translation as quickly as I could, in the intervals of giving
lessons. It took me two days. The manuscript was a report
on the aims and progress of various strikes, and the measures
taken to supply food and clothing to the families of the strik-
ers. My chief difficulty was with the numerous and ever-
recurring groups of initial letters which represented the
names of the different organizations involved. As I did not
know what most of these organizations were called in Eng-
lish, I didn’t know what letters to substitute for those in the
manuscript.

“It is not so important,” replied Bayer, when I asked him
about this. “We attend to this matter ourselves.”

65

Something in his tone made me feel humiliated. The manu-
script he had given me to translate was simply not important.
It would probably never be sent to England at all. Bayer had
given it me, like a toy, to play with, hoping, no doubt, to be
rid of my tiresome, useless enthusiasm for a week at least.

“You find this work interesting?” he continued. “I am glad.
It is necessary for every man and woman in our days.to have
knowledge of this problem. You have read something from
Marx?”

I said that I had once tried to read Das Kapital •

“Ah, tliat is too difficult, for a beginning. You should try
the Communist Manifesto. And some of Lenihs pamphlets.
Wait, I will give you . . .”

He was amiability itself. He seemed in no hurry to get rid
of me. Could it really be that he had no more important way
of spending the afternoon? He asked about the living condi-
tions in the East End of London and I tried to eke out the
little knowledge I had collected in the course of a few days'
slumming, three years before. His mere attention was flattery
of the most stimulating kind. I found myself doing nearly all
the talking. Half an hour later, with books and more papers
to translate under my arm, I was about to say good-bye when
Bayer asked:

“You have known Norris a long time?”

“More than a year, now,” I replied, automatically, my
mind registering no reaction to the question.

“Indeed? And where did you meet?”

This time I did not miss the tone in his voice. I looked hard
at him. But his extraordinary eyes were neither suspicious,
nor threatening, nor sly. Smiling pleasantly, he simply waited
in silence for my answer,

“We got to know each other in the train, on the way to
Berlin.”

Bayers glance became faintly amused. With disarming,
bland directness, he asked:

‘Tfou are good friends? You go to see him often?”

“Oh yes. Very often.”

66

“You have not many English friends in Berlin, I think?’’

“No”

Bayer nodded seriously. Then he rose from his chair and
shook my hand. “I have to go now and work. If there is any-
thing you wish to say to me, please do not hesitate to come
and see me at any time.”

“Thank you very much.”

So that was it, I thought, on my way down the shabby stair-
case. None of them trusted Arthur. Bayer didn’t trust him
but he wars prepared to make use of him, with all due pre-
cautions. And to make use of me, too, as a convenient spy
on Arthur s movements. It wasn’t necessary to let me into
the secret. I could so easily be pumped. I felt angry, and
at the same time rather amused.

After all, one couldn’t blame them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Otto turned up at Arthur’s about a week later, unshaved and
badly in need of a meal. They had let him out of prison the
day before. When I went round to the flat that evening, I
found him with Arthur in the dining-room, having just
finished a substantial supper.

“And what did they use to give you on Sundays?” he was
asking as I came in. “We got pea-soup with a sausage in it.
Not so bad.”

“Let me see now,” Arthur reflected. “I’m afraid I really
can’t remember. In any case, I never had much appetite.
• . . Ah, my dear William, here you arel Please take a chair.

67

That is, if you don’t disdain the company of two old gaol-
birds. Otto and I were just comparing notes.”

The day before Arthur and I visited the Alexanderplatz,
Otto and Anni had had a quarrel. Otto had wanted to give
fifteen pfennigs to a man who came round collecting for a
strike fund of the I.A.H. Anni had refused to agree to this,
‘"on principle.” “Why should the dirty communists have my
money?” she had said. “I have to work hard enough to earn
it.” The possessive pronoun challenged Otto’s accepted status
and rights; he generously disregarded it. But the adjective
had really shocked him. He had slapped her face, “not hard,”
he assured us, but violently enough to make her turn a somer-
sault over the bed and land with her head against the wall;
the bump had dislodged a framed photograph of Stalin,
which had fallen to the ground and smashed its glass. Anni
had begun to curse him and cry. “That’ll teach you not to talk
about tilings you don’t understand,” Otto had told her, not
xmkindly. Communism had always been a delicate subject
between them. “I’m sick of you,” cried Anni, “and all your
bloody Reds. Get out of here!” She had thrown the
photograph-frame at him and missed.

Thinking all this over carefully, in the neighbouring Lokal,
Otto had come to the conclusion that he was the injured
party. Pained and angry, he began drinking Korn. He drank
a good deal. He was stiU drinking at nine o’clock in the
evening, when a boy named Erich, whom he knew, came in,
selling biscuits. Erich, with his basket, went the rounds of the
cafes and restaurants in the whole district, carrying messages
and picking up gossip. He told Otto that he had just seen
Anni in a Nazi Lokal on the Kreuzberg, with Werner Baldow.

Werner was an old enemy of Otto’s, both political and
private. A year ago, he had left the communist cell to which
Otto belonged and joined the local Nazi storm-troop. He had
always been sweet on Anni. Otto, who was pretty drunk by
this time, did what even he would never have dared when
sober; he jumped up and set off for the Nazi Lokal alone.
Two policemen who happened to pass the place a minute or
two iter he entered it probably saved him from getting

68

broken bones. He had just been flung out for the second time
and wanted to go in again. The policemen removed him with
difficulty; he bit and kicked on the way to the station. The
Nazis, of course, were virtuously indignant. The incident
featured in their newspapers next day as “an unprovoked and
cowardly attack on a National-Socialist Lokal by ten armed
commuiusts, nine of whom made a successful escape.” Otto
had the cutting in his pocket-book and showed it to us with
pride. He had been unable to get at Werner himself. Werner
had retreated with Anni into a room at the back of the
Lokal as soon as he had come in.

“And he can keep her, the dirty bitch,” added Otto vio-
lently. “I wouldn’t have her again if she came to me on her
knees.”

“Well, well,” Arthur began to murmur automatically, “we
live in stirring times . . .”

He pulled himself up abruptly. Something was wi*ong. His
eyes wandered uneasily over the array of plates and dishes,
like an actor deprived of his cue. There was no tea-pot on the
table.

Not many days after this, Arthur telephoned to tell me
that Otto and Anni had made it up.

“I felt sure you’d be glad to hear. I may say that I my-
self was to some extent instrumental in the good work. Yes,
, . . Blessed are the peacemakers. ... As a matter of fact,
I was particularly interested in effecting a reconciliation
just now, in view of a little anniversary which falls due next
Wednesday. . . . You didn’t know? Yes, I shall be fifty-three.
Thank you, dear boy. Thank you. I must confess I find it
difficult to become accustomed to the thought that the yel-
low leaf is upon me. . . , And now, may I invite you to a
trifling banquet? The fair sex will be represented. Besides
the reunited pair, there will be Madame Olga and two other
of my more doubtful and charming acquaintances. I shall
have the sitting-room carpet taken up, so that the younger
members of the party can dance. Is that nice?”

Weiy nice indeed.”

69

On Wednesday evening I had to give an unexpected lesson
and arrived at Arthur’s flat later Sian I intended. I found
Hermann waiting downstairs at the house door to let me in.

‘I’m so sorry,” I said. “I hope you haven’t been standing
here long?”

“It’s all right,” Hermann answered briefly. He unlocked
the door and led the way upstairs. What a dreary creature
he is, I thought. He can’t even brighten up for a birthday
party.

I discovered Arthur in the sitting-room. He was reclining
on the sofa in his shiit-sleeves, his hands folded in his lap.

“Here you are, William.”

“Arthur, I’m most terribly sorry. I hurried as much as I
could. I thought I should never get away. That old girl I
told you about arrived unexpectedly and insisted on having
a two-hour lesson. She merely wanted to tell me about the
way her daughter had been behaving. I thought she’d never
stop. . . . Why, what’s the matter? You don’t look weU,”

Arthur sadly scratched his chin.

“I’m very depressed, dear boy.”

“But why? What about? ... I say, where are your other
guests? Haven’t they come yet?”

“They came. I was obliged to send them away.”

“Then you are ill?”

“No, WiUiam. Not ill, I fear I’m getting old, I have always
hated scenes and now I find them altogether too much for
me.”

“Who’s been making a scene?”

Arthur raised himself slowly from his chair. I had a sud-
den glimpse of him as he would be in twenty years’ time;
shaky and rather pathetic.

“It’s a long story, WiUiam. ShaU we have something to eat
first? I’m afraid I can only offer you scrambled eggs and
beer; if indeed there is any beer.”

“It doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I’ve brought you a little
present.”

I produced a bottle of cognac which I had been holding
behind my back.

70

"‘My dear boy, you overwhelm me. You shouldn’t, you
know. You really shouldn’t. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“Oh yes, easily. Tm saving quite a lot of money nowadays.”

“I always,” Arthur shook his head sadly, “look upon the
capacity to save money as little short of miraculous.”

Our footsteps echoed loudly through the flat as we crossed
the bar^ boards where the carpet had been.

“All was prepared for the festivities, when the spectre ap-
peared to forbid the feast,” Arthur chuckled nervously and
rubbed his hands together.

“Ah, but the Apparition, the dumb sign,

The beckoning finger bidding me forgo
The fellowship, the converse and the wine,

The songs, the festal glow!

“Rather apt here, I think. I hope you know your William
Watson? I have always regarded him as the greatest of die
modems.”

The dining-room was draped with paper festoons in prep-
aration for the party; Chinese lanterns were suspended
above the table. On seeing them, Arthur shook his head.

“Shall we have these things taken down, Wilham? Will
they depress you too much, do you think?”

“I don’t see why they should,” I said. “On the contrary,
they ought to cheer us up. After all, whatever has happened,
it’s still your birthday.”

“Well, well. You may be right. You’re always so philo-
sophical. The blows of fate are indeed cruel.”

Hermann gloomily brought in the eggs. He reported, with
rather bitter satisfaction, that there was no butter.

“No butter,” Arthur repeated. “No butter. My humiliation
as a host is complete. . . . Who would think, to see me
now, that I have entertained more than one member of a
royal family under my own roof? This evening, I had in-
tended to set a sumptuous repast before you. I won’t make
your mouth water by reciting the menu.”

“I think the eggs are very nice. I’m only sorry that you
had to send your guests away.”

71

“So am I, William. So am I. Unfortunately, it was impos-
sible to ask them to stay. I shouldn't have dared face Anni's
displeasure. She was naturally expecting to find a groaning
board. . . . And, in any case, Hermann told me there weren’t
enough eggs in the house.”

“Arthur, do tell me now what has happened.”

He smiled at my impatience, enjoying a mystery, a,s always.
Thoughtfully, he squeezed his collapsed chin between finger
and thumb.

“Well, William, the somewhat sordid story which I am
about to relate to you centres on the sitting-room carpet.”

“Which you had taken up for the dancing?”

Arthur shook his head.

“It was not, I regret to say, taken up for the dancing. That
was merely a fagon de parler. I didn’t wish to distress one of
your sympathetic nature unnecessarily.”

“You mean, you’ve sold it?”

“Not sold, William. You should know me better. I never
sell if I can pavm.”

“I’m sorry. It was a nice carpet.”

“It was, indeed. . . , And worth very much more than
the two hundred marks I got for it. But one mustn’t expect
too much these days. ... At all events, it would have
covered the expenses of the little celebration I had planned.
Unfortunately,” here Arthur glanced towards the door, “the
eagle, or, shall I say, the vulture eye of Schmidt lighted upon
the vacant space left by the carpet, and his uncanny acumen
rejected almost immediately the very plausible explanation
which I gave for its disappearance. He was very cruel to
me. Very firm. ... To cut a long story short, I was left, at
the end of our most unpleasant interview, with the sum of
four marks, seventy-five pfennigs. The last twenty-five pfen-
nigs were an unfortunate afterthought. He wanted them for
his bus-fare home.”

“He actually took away your money?”

“Yes, it was my money, wasn’t it?” said Arthur, eagerly,
seizing this little crumb of encouragement. “That’s just what

72

I told him. But he only shouted at me in the most dreadful
way.”

‘1 never heard anything like it. I wonder you don t sack
iim.”

“Well, William, 111 tell you. The reason is very simple. I
owe him nine months’ wages.”

“Yes, I supposed there was something like that. All the
same, its no reason why you should allow yourself to be
shouted at. I wouldn’t have put up with it.”

“Ah, my. dear boy, you’re always so firm. I only wish I’d
had you there to protect me. I feel sure you would have
been able to deal with him. Although I must say,” Arthur
added doubtfully, “Schmidt can be terribly firm when he
likes.”

“But, Arthur, do you seriously mean to tell me that you
intended spending two hundred marks on a dinner for seven
people? I never heard anything so fantastic.”

“There were to have been httle presents,” said Arthur
meekly. “Something for each of you.”

“It would have been lovely, of course. . . . But such ex-
travagance. . . . You’re so hard up that you can only eat
eggs, and yet, when you do get some cash, you propose to
blow it immediately.”

“Don’t you start lecturing me, too, William, or I shall cry.
I can’t help my little weaknesses. Life would be drab in-
deed if we didn’t sometimes allow ourselves a treat.”

“All right,” I said, laughing. “I won’t lecture you. In your
place, I’d probably have done just the same.”

After supper, when we had returned with the cognac into
the denuded sitting-room, I asked Arthur if he had seen
Bayer lately. The change which came over his face at the
mention of the name surprised me. His soft mouth pursed
peevishly. Avoiding my glance, he frowned and abruptly
shook his head.

“I don’t go there more than I can help.”

“Why?”

I had seldom seen him like this. He seemed, indeed, an-

73

noyed with me for having asked the question. For a mo-
ment he was silent. Then he broke out, with childish petu-
lance:

‘1 don t go there because I don’t like to go. Because it up-
sets me to go. The disorder in that office is terrible. It de-
presses me. It offends a person of my sensibilities to see such
entire lack of method. ... Do you know, the other day
Bayer lost a most important document, and where do you
diink it was found? In the waste-paper basket. Actually . . .
to think that these people s wages are paid out of tlie hard-
earned savings of the workers. It makes ones blood boil.
. . . And, of course, the whole place is infested with spies.
Bayer even knows their names. . . . And what does he do
about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t seem to
care. That’s what so infuriates me; that happy-go-lucky way
of doing things. Why, in Russia, they’d simply be put against
the wall and shot.”

I grinned. Arthur as the militant revolutionary was a little
too good to be true.

‘‘You used to admire him so much.”

“Oh, he’s an able enough man in his way. No doubt about
that.” Arthur furtively rubbed his chin. His teeth were bared
in a snarl of an old lion. “I’ve been very much disappointed
in Bayer,” he added.

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” Some last vestiges of caution visibly held him back.
But no. The temptation was too exquisite: “William, if I
tell you something, you must promise on all you hold sacred
that it will go no farther.”

“I promise.”

“Very well. When I threw in my lot with the Party, or,
rather, promised it my help (and though I say it who
shouldn’t, I am in a position to help them in many quarters to
which they have not hitherto had access) —

“I’m sure you are.”

“I stipulated, very naturally I think, for a (how shall I put
it?) — ^let us say — a quid pro quo.** Arthur paused and glanced

74

at me anxiously. "I hope, William, that that doesn’t shock
you?”

“Not in the least.”

“I’m very glad. I might have known that you’d look at the
thing in a sensible light. . . . After all, one’s a man of the
world. Flags and banners and catchwords are all very well
for the rank and file, but the leaders know that a political
campaign can’t be carried on witliout money. I talked this
over with Bayer at the time when I was considering taking
the plunge; and, I must say, he was very reasonable about it.
He quite saw that, crippled as I am with five thousand
pounds’ worth of debts. . .

“My God, is it as much as that?”

“It is, I’m sorry to say. Of course, not all my engagements
are equally pressing. . , . Where was I? Yes. Crippled as I
am with debts I am hardly in a position to be of much service
to the Cause. As you know yourself, I am subject to all sorts
of vulgar embarrassments.”

“And Bayer agreed to pay some of them?”

“You put things with your usual directness, William. Well,
yes, I may say that he hinted, most distinctly hinted, that
Moscow would not be ungrateful if I fulfilled my first mis-
sion successfully. I did so. Bayer would be the first to admit
that. And what has happened? Nothing. Of course, I know it’s
not altogether his fault. His own salary and that of the typists
and clerks in his ofiBce is often months overdue. But it’s none
the less annoying for that. And I can’t help feeling that he
doesn’t press my claim as much as he might. He even seems
to regard it as rather funny when I come to him and com-
plain that I’ve barely enough money for my next meal. . . .
Do you know, I’m still owed for my trip to Paris? I had to
pay the fare out of my own pocket; and imagining, naturally
enough, that the expenses, at least, would be defrayed, I
traveUed first class.”

“Poor Arthur!” I had some trouble to avoid laughing, “And
what shall you do now? Is there any prospect of this money
coming after all?”

75

T should think none,'" said Arthur gloomily.

“Look here, let me lend you some. Tve got ten marks.”

“No, thank you, William. I appreciate the thought, but I
couldn’t borrow from you. I feel that it would spoil our
beautiful friendship. No, I shall wait two days more; then I
shall take certain steps. And, if these are not successful, I
shall know what to do.”

“You’re very mysterious.” For an instant, the thought even
passed through my mind that Arthur was perhaps meditating
suicide. But the very idea of his attempting to kill himseS
was so absurd that it made me begin to smile. “I hope every-
thing will go oiff all right,” I added, as we said good-bye.

“So do I, my dear William. So do 1.” Arthur glanced cau-
tiously down the staircase. “Please give my regards to the
divine Schroeder.”

“You really must come and visit us some day soon. It’s such
a long time since you’ve been. She’s pining away without
you.”

“With the greatest pleasure, when all these troubles are
over. If they ever are.” Arthur sighed deeply. “Good night,
dear boy. God bless you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day, Thursday, I was busy with lessons. On Friday,
I tried three times to ring up Arthur s flat, but the number
was always engaged. On Saturday, I went away for the
week-end to see some friends in Hamburg. I didn’t get back
to Berlin until late on Monday afternoon. That evening I
dialled Arthur’s number, wanting to tell him about my visitj

76

again there was no reply. I rang four times, at intervals of
half an hour, and then complained to the operator. She told
me, in official language, that “the subscriber s instrument*
was “no longer in use.”

I wasnt particularly surprised. In the present state of
Arthurs finances, it was hardly to be expected that he would
have settled his telephone bill. All the same, I thought, he
might have come to see me or sent a note. But no doubt he
was busy, too.

Three more days went by. It was seldom that we had ever
let a whole week pass without a meeting or, at any rate, a
telephone conversation. Perhaps Artliur was ill. Indeed, the
more I thought about it, the surer I felt that this must be the
explanation of his silence. He had probably worried himself
into a nervous breakdown over his debts. And, all this while,
I had been neglecting him. I felt suddenly very guilty. I
would go round and see him, I decided, that same afternoon.

Some premonition or pang of conscience made me hurry.
I reached the Courbierestrasse in record time, ran quickly
upstairs, and, still panting, rang the bell. After all, Arthur
was no longer young. The life he had been leading was
enough to break anybody down; and he had a weak heart.
I must be prepared to hear serious news. Supposing. . .
hullo, what was this? In my haste, I must have miscounted
the number of floors. I was standing in front of a door with-
out a name-plate: the door of a strange flat. It was one of
those siUy embarrassing things which always happen when
one lets oneself get flustered. My first impulse was to run
away, up or down stairs, I wasn't quite sure which. But,
after aU, I had rung these people's bell. The best thing would
be to wait until somebody answered it, and then explain my
mistake.

I waited; one minute, two, three. The door didn't open.
There was nobody at home, it seemed. I had been saved
from making a fool of myself, after all.

But now I noticed something else. On both the doors which
faced me were little squares of paint which were darker

77

than the rest of the woodwork. There was no doubt about
it; they were the marks left by recently removed name-
plates. I could even see the tiny holes where the screws
had been.

A kind of panic seized me. Within half a minute, I had
run up the stairs to the top of the house, then down again to
the bottom; very quickly and lightly, as one sometimes runs
in a nightmare, Arthur s two name-plates were nowhere to
be found. But wait: perhaps I was in the wrong house al-
together. I had done stupider things before now.. I went out
into the street and looked at the number over the entrance.
No, there was no mistake there.

I don’t know what I mightn’t have done, at that moment,
if the portress herself hadn’t appeared. She knew me by
sight and nodded ungraciously. She plainly hadn’t much use
for Arthur’s callers. No doubt the visits of the bailiff had got
the house a bad name.

"If you’re looking for your friend,” she maliciously em-
phasized the word, "you’re too late. He’s gone.”

"Gone?”

‘"Yes. Two days ago. The flat’s to let. Didn’t you know?”

I suppose my face was a comic picture of dismay, for she
added unpleasantly: "You aren’t the only one he didn’t tell.
There’ve been a dozen round here already. Owed you some
money, did he?”

"Where’s he gone to?” I asked dully.

"I’m sure I don’t know, or care. That cook of his comes
round here and collects the letters. You’d better ask him.”

"I can’t. I don’t know where he lives.”

"Then I can’t help you,” said the portress with a certain
vicious satisfaction. Arthur must have neglected to tip her.
"Why don’t you try the police?”

With this parting shot she went into her lodge and slammed
the door. I walked slowly away down the street, feeling
rather dazed.

My question was soon answered, however. The next morn-
ing I got a letter, dated from a hotel in Prague:

78

My dear William,

Do forgive me. I was compelled to leave Berlin at very
short notice and under conditions of secrecy which made
it impossible for me to communicate with you. The little
operation about which I spoke to you was, alas, the re-
verse of successful, and the doctor ordered an immediate
change of air. So unhealthy, indeed, had the atmosphere
of Berlin become for one of my peculiar constitution,
tliat, had I remained another week, dangerous complica-
tions would almost certainly have arisen.

My lares and penates have all been sold and the pro-
ceeds largely swallowed up by the demands of my
various satellites. I don’t complain of that. They have,
with one exception, served me faithfully, and the
labourer is worthy of his hire. As for that one, I shall
not permit his odious name to pass my lips again. Suf-
fice it to say that he was and is a scoundrel of the
deepest dye and has behaved as such.

I find life here very pleasant. The cooking is good, not
so good as in my beloved and incomparable Paris,
whither I hope, next Wednesday, to wend my weary
steps, but still far better than anything which barbarous
Berlin could provide. Nor are the consolations of the
fair and cruet sex absent. Already, under the grateful
influence of civilized comfort, I put forth my leaves, I
expand. To such an extent, indeed, have I already ex-
panded that I fear I shall arrive in Paris almost devoid
of means. Never mind. The Mammon of Unrighteous-
ness will, no doubt, be ready to receive me into habita-
tions which, if not everlasting, will at least give me time
to look round.

Please convey to our mutual friend my most fraternal
greetings and tell him that I shall not fail, on arriving,
to execute his various commissions.

Do write soon and regale me with your inimitable
wit.

As always, your affectionate

ARTHtm.

79

My first reaction was to feel, perhaps unreasonably, angry.
I had to admit to myself that my feeling for Arthur had been
largely possessive. He was my discovery, my property. I was
as hurt as a spinster who has been deserted by her cat. And
yet, after all, how silly of me. Arthur was his own master; he
wasn’t accountable to me for his actions. I began to look
round for excuses for his conduct, and, hke an indulgent
parent, easily found them. Hadn’t he, indeed, behaved with
considerable nobility? Threatened from every side, he had
faced his troubles alone. He had carefully avoided involving
me in possible future unpleasantness with the authorities.
After all, he had said to himself, I am leaving this country,
but William has to stay here and earn his living; I have no
right to indulge my personal feelings at his expense. I pic-
tured Arthur taking a last hurried stroll down our street,
glancing up with furtive sadness at the window of my room,
hesitating, walking sorrowfully away. The end of it was
that I sat down and wrote him a chatty, affectionate letter,
asking no questions and, indeed, avoiding any remark which
might compromise either him or myself. Frl. Schroeder, who
was much upset at the news of Arthur s departure, added a
long postscript. He was never to forget, she wrote, that there
was one house in Berhn where he would always be welcome.

My curiosity was far from being satisfied. The obvious
thing was to question Otto, but where was I to find him? I
decided to try Olga’s for a start. Anni, I knew, rented a bed-
room there.

I hadn’t seen Olga since that party in the small hours of
the New Year; but Arthur, who sometimes visited her in the
way of business, had told me a good deal about her from
time to time. Like most people who still contrived to earn a
living in those bankrupt days, she was a woman of numerous
occupations. “Not to put too fine a point upon it,” as Arthur
was fond of saying, she was a procuress, a cocaine-seller and
a receiver of stolen goods; she also let lodgings, took in wash-
ing and, when in the mood, did exquisite fancy needlework.

80

Arthur once showed me a table-centre she had given him for
Christmas which was quite a work of art.

I found the house without difficulty and passed under the
archway into the court. The courtyard was narrow and deep,
like a coffin standing on end. The head of the coffin rested on
the earth, for the house-fronts inclined slightly inwards. They
were held apart by huge timber baulks, spanning the gap,
high up, Against the grey square of sky. Down here, at the
bottom, where the rays of the sun could never penetrate,
there was a deep twilight, like the light in a mountain gorge.
On three sides of the court were windows; on the fourSi, an
immense blank wall, about eighty feet high, whose plaster
surface had swollen into blisters and burst, leaving raw,
sooty scars. At the foot of this ghastly precipice stood a queer
little hut, probably an outdoor lavatory. Beside it was a
broken hand-cart with only one wheel, and a printed notice,
now almost illegible, stating the hours at which the inhab-
itants of the tenement were allowed to beat their carpets.

The staircase, even at this hour of the afternoon, was very
dark. I stumbled up it, counting the landings, and knocked
at a door which I hoped was the right one. There was a
shuffle of slippers, a clink of keys, and the door opened a
httle way, on the chain.

*‘Who s there?” a woman's voice asked.

“William,” I said.

The name made no impression. The door began, doubt-
fully, to shut.

“A friend of Arthur s,” I added hastily, trying to make my
voice sound reassuring. I couldn’t see what sort of person I
was talking to; inside the flat it was pitch black. It was like
speaking to a priest in a confessional.

“Wait a minute,” said the voice.

The door shut and the slippers shuffled away. Other foot-
steps returned. The door reopened and the electric light
was switched on in the narrow hall. On the threshold stood
Olga herself. Her mighty form was enveloped in a Idmono
of garish colours which she wore with lie majesty of a

81

priestess in her ceremonial robes. I hadn’t remembered her
as being quite so enormous.

‘"Well?” she said. “What do you want?”

She hadn’t recognized me. For all she knew I might be a
detective. Her tone was aggressive and harsh; it showed not
the least trace of hesitation or fear. She was ready for all
her enemies. Her hard blue eyes, ceaselessly watchful as
the eyes of a tigress, moved away over my shoulder into the
gloomy well of the staircase. She was wondering whether I
had come alone.

“May 1 speak to Frl. Anni?” I said politely.

“You can t. She’s busy.”

My EngLsh accent had reassured her, however; for she
added briefly: “Come inside,” and turned, leading the way
into the sitting-room. She left me with entire indifference to
shut the outer door. I did so meekly and followed.

Standing on the sitting-room table was Otto, in his shirt-
sleeves, tinkering with 3ie converted gasolier.

“Why, it’s Willi!” he cried, jumping down and dealing me
a staggering clap on the shoulder.

We shook hands. Olga lowered herself into a chair facing
mine with the deliberation and sinister dignity of a fortune-
teller. The bracelets jangled harshly on her swollen wrists. I
wondered how old she was; perhaps not more than thirty-
five, for there were no wrinkles on her puffy, waxen face,
I didn’t much like her hearing what I had to say to Otto, but
she had plainly no intention of moving as long as I was in the
fiat. Her blue doll’s eyes held mine in a brutal, unwinking
regard.

“Haven’t 1 seen you somewhere before?”

“You’ve seen me in this room,” I said, “drunk.”

“So.” Olga’s bosom shook silently. She had laughed.

“Did you see Arthur before he left?” I asked Otto, at the
end of a long pause.

Yes, Anni and Otto had both seen him, though quite by
chance, as it appeared. Happening to look in on the Sunday
afternoon, they had discovered Aiihm in the midst of his

82

packing. There had been a great deal of telephoning and
running hither and thither. And then Schmidt had appeared.
He and Arthur had retired into the bedroom for a conference,
and soon Otto and Anni had heard loud, angry voices.
Schmidt had come out of the bedroom, with Arthur follow-
ing him in a state of ineffectual rage. Otto hadn’t been able
to understand very clearly what it was all about, but the
Baron had had something to do with it, and money. Arthur
was angry because of something Schmidt had said to the
Baron; Sqhmidt was insulting and contemptuous by turns.
Arthur had cried: ‘‘You’ve shown not only the blackest in-
gratitude, but downright treachery!” Otto was quite posi-
tive about this. The phrase seemed to have made a special
impression on him; perhaps because the word “treachery”
had a definitely political flavour in his mind. Indeed, he quite
took it for granted that Schmidt had somehow betrayed the
Communist Party. “The very first time I saw him, I said to
Anni, 1 shouldn’t wonder if he’s been sent to spy on Arthur.
He looks like a Nazi, with that great big swollen head of his.’ ”

What followed had confirmed Otto in his opinion. Schmidt
had been just about to leave the flat when he turned and
said to Arthur:

“Well, I’m off. rU leave you to the tender mercies of your
precious communist friends. And when they’ve swindled you
out of your last pfennig . . .”

He hadn’t got any farther. For Otto, puzzled by all this
talk and relieved at last to hear something which he could
understand and resent, had taken Schmidt out of the flat by
the back of the collar and sent him flying downstairs with
a hearty kick on the bottom. Otto, in his narrative, dwelt on
the kick with special pride and pleasure. It had been one of
the kicks of his life, an inspired kick, beautifully judged and
timed. He was anxious that I should understand just how and
where it had landed. He made me stand up, and touched me
lightly on the buttock with his toe. I was a little uneasy,
knowing what an effort of self-control it cost him not to let

fly-

83

“My word, Willi, you should have heard him land! Bing!
Bong! Crash! For a minute he didn’t seem to know where he
was or what had happened to him. And then he began to
blubber, just like a baby. I was so weak with laughing at
him you could have pushed me downstairs with one finger.’’

And Otto began to laugh now, as he said it. He laughed
heartily, without the least malice or savagery. He bore the
discomfited Schmidt no grudge.

I asked whether anything more had been heard of him.
Otto didn’t know. Schmidt had picked himself jup, slowly
and painfully, sobbed out some inarticulate threat, and
limped away downstairs. And Arthur, who had been present
in the background, had shaken his head doubtfully and pro-
tested.

“You shouldn’t have done that, you know.”

“Arthur’s much too kind-hearted,” added Otto, coming to
the end of his story. “He trusts everybody. And what thanks
does he get for it? None. He’s always being swindled and
betrayed.”

No comment on this last remark seemed adequate. I said
that I must be going.

Something about me seemed to amuse Olga. Her bosom
silently quivered. Without warning, as we reached the door,
she gave my cheek a rough, deliberate pinch, as though she
were plucking a plum from a tree.

“You’re a nice boy,” she chuckled harshly. “You must come
round here one evening. I’ll teach you something you didn’t
know before.”

“You ought to try it once with Olga, Willi,” Otto seriously
advised. “It’s well worth the money.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said politely, and hurried downstairs,

A few days later, I had a rendezvous with Fritz Wendel at
the Troika. Arriving rather too early, I sat down at the bar
and found the Baron on the stool next to my own.

“Hullo, Kuno!”

“Good evening.”

84

He inclined his sleek head stiffly. To my surprise, he didn t
seem at all pleased to see me. Indeed, quite the reverse. His
monocle gleamed poHte hostihty; his naked eye was evasive
and shifty.

“I haven’t seen you for ages,” I said brightly, trying to
appear serenely unconscious of his manner.

His eye travelled round the room; he was positively search-
ing for help, but nobody answered his appeal. The place was
stiU nearly empty. The barman edged over towards us.

“What’ilj^ou have to drink?” I asked. His dislike of my
society was beginning to intrigue me.

“Er — nothing, thank you. You see, I have to be going.”

“What, you’re leaving us so soon, Herr Baron?” put in the
barman affably; unconsciously adding to his discomfort:
“Why, you’ve hardly been here five minutes, you know.”

“Have you heard from Arthur Norris?” With deliberate
malice I disregarded his attempts to dismount from his stooL
He couldn’t do so until I had pushed mine back a little.

The name made Kuno visibly wince.

“No.” His tone was icy. “I have not”

“He’s in Paris, you know.”

“Indeed?”

“Well,” I said heartily, “I mustn’t keep you any longer.”
I held out my hand. He barely touched it.

“Good-bye.”

Released at last, he made like an arrow for the door. One
might have thought that he was escaping from a plague
hospital. The barman, discreetly smiling, picked up the coins
and shovelled them into the till. He had seen spongers
snubbed before.

I was left with another mystery to solve.

Like a long train which stops at every dingy little station,
the winter dragged slowly past. Each week tibere were new
emergency decrees. Briining’s weary episcopal voice issued
commands to the shopkeepers, and was not obeyed. “It s
Fascism,” complained the Social Democrats. “He’s weak,”

85

said Helen Pratt. “What these swine need is a man with hair
on his chest."’ The Hessen Document was discovered; but
nobody really cared. There had been one scandal too many.
The exhausted public had been fed with surprises to the
point of indigestion. People said that the Nazis would be in
power by Christmas; but Christmas came and they were not.
Arthur sent me the compliments of the season on a post-card
of the Eiffel Tower.

Berlin was in a state of civil war. Hate exploded suddenly,
without warning, out of nowhere; at street corners, in res-
taurants, cinemas, dance halls, swimming-baths; at midnight,
after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon. Knives were
whipped out, blows were dealt with spiked rings, beer-mugs,
chair-legs or leaded clubs; bullets slashed the advertise-
ments on the poster-columns, rebounded from the iron roofs
of latrines. In the middle of a crowded street a young man
would be attacked, stripped, thrashed and left bleeding on
the pavement; in fifteen seconds it was all over and the as-
sailants had disappeared. Otto got a gash over the eye with
a razor in a battle on a fair-ground near the Copernicker-
strasse. The doctor put in three stitches and he was in hos-
pital for a week. The newspapers were full of death-bed
photographs of rival martyrs, Nazi, Reichsbanner and Com-
munist. My pupils looked at them and shook their heads,
apologizing to me for the state of Germany. “Dear, dear!""
they said, “it"s terrible. It can"t go on.""

The murder reporters and the jazz-writers had inflated the
German language beyond recall. The vocabulary of news-
paper invective (traitor, Versailles-lackey, murder-swine,
Marx-crook, Hitler-swamp, Red-pest) had come to resemble,
through excessive use, the formal phraseology of politeness
employed by the Chinese. The word Liebe, soaring from the
Goethe standard, was no longer worth a whore"s kiss. Spring,
moonlight, youth, roses, girl, darling, heart. May: such was
the miserably devaluated currency dealt in by the authors of
all those tangoes, waltzes and fox-trots which advocated the
private escape. Find a dear little sweetheart, they advised,

86

and forget the slump, ignore the unemployed. Fly, they urged
us, to Hawaii, to Naples, to the Never-Never-Vienna. Hugen-
berg, behind the Ufa, was serving up nationalism to suit all
tastes. He produced battlefield epics, farces of barrack-room
life, operettas in which the jinks of a pre-war military aris-
toa'acy were reclothed in the fashions of 1932. His brilliant
directors and camera-men had to concentrate their talents on
cynically beautiful shots of the bubbles in champagne and
the sheen of lamplight on silk.

And morning after morning, all over the immense, damp,
dreary town and the packing-case colonies of huts in the
suburb allotments, young men were waking up to another
workless empty day to be spent as they could best contrive;
selling bootlaces, begging, playing draughts in the hall of
the Labour Exchange, hanging about urinals, opening the
doors of cars, helping with crates in the markets, gossiping,
lounging, steahng, overhearing racing tips, sharing stumps of
cigarette-ends picked up in the gutter, singing folk-songs for
groschen in courtyards and between stations in the carriages
of the Underground Railway. After the New Year, the snow
fell, but did not lie; there was no money to be earned by
sweeping it away. The shopkeepers rang all coins on the
counter for fear of the counterfeiters. Frl. Schroeder s astrolo-
ger foretold the end of the world. “Listen,” said Fritz Wendel,
between sips of a cocktail in the bar of the Eden Hotel, “I
give a damn if this country goes communist. What I mean,
we’d have to alter our ideas a bit. Hell, who cares?”

At the beginning of March, the posters for the Presidential
Election began to appear. Hindenburgs portrait, with an
inscription in gothic lettering beneath it, struck a frankly
religious note: “He hath kept faith with you; be ye faithful
unto Him.” The Nazis managed to evolve a formula which
dealt cleverly with this venerable icon and avoided the of-
fence of blasphemy: “Honour Hindenburg; Vote for Hit-
ler.” Otto and his comrades set out every night, with paint-
pots and brushes, on dangerous expeditions. They climbed
high walls, scrambled along roofs, squirmed tmder hoard-

87

ings; avoiding the police and the S.A. patrols. And next
morning, passers-by would see Thalmann s name boldly in-
scribed in some prominent and inaccessible position. Otto
gave me a bunch of little gum-backed labels; Vote for Thal-
mann, the Workers’ Candidate. I carried these about in my
pocket and stuck them on shop-windows and doors when no-
body was looking.

Briining spoke in the Sport Palace. We must vote for Plin-
denburg, he told us, and save Germany. His gestures were
sharp and admonitory; his spectacles gleamed -emotion in
the limelight. His voice quivered with dry academic passion.
^Inflation,” he threatened, and the audience shuddered.
^‘Tannenberg,” he reverently reminded: there was prolonged
applause.

Bayer spoke in the Lustgarten, during a snowstorm, from
the roof of a van; a tiny, hatless figure gesticulating above
the vast heaving sea of faces and banners. Behind him was
the cold fagade of the Schloss; and, lining its stone balus-
trade, the ranks of armed silent police. “Look at them,” cried
Bayer. “Poor chaps! It seems a shame to make them stand out
of doors in weather like this. Never mind; they’ve got nice
thick coats to keep them warm. Who gave them those coats?
We did. Wasn’t it kind of us? And who’s going to give us
coats? Ask me another.”

“So the old boy’s done the trick again,” said Helen Pratt.
“I knew he would. Won ten marks off them at the office, the
poor fools.”

It was the Wednesday after the election, and we were
standing on the platform of the Zoo Station. Helen had come
to see me off in the train to England.

“By the way,” she added, “what became of that queer card
you brought along one evening? Morris, wasn’t his name?”

“Norris ... I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him for
ages.”

It was strange that she should have asked that, because I
had been thinking about Arthur myself, only a moment be-

88

fore. In my mind, I always connected him with this station.
It would soon be six months since he had gone away; it
seemed like last week. The moment I got to London, I de-
cided, I would write him a long letter.

CHAPTER NINE

Nevertheless, I didn’t write. Why, I hardly know. I was lazy
and the weather had turned warm. I thought of Arthur often;
so often, indeed, that correspondence seemed unnecessary.
It was as though we were in some kind of telephathic com-
munication. Finally, I went into the country for four
months, and discovered, too late, that I’d left the post-card
with his address in a drawer somewhere in London. Anyhow,
it didn’t much matter. He had probably left Paris ages ago
by this time. If he wasn’t in prison.

At the beginning of October I returned to Berlin. The dear
old Tauentzienstrasse hadn’t changed. Looking out at it
through the taxi window on my way from the station, I saw
several Nazis in their new S.A. unifomis, now no longer for-
bidden. They strode along the street very stiff, and were
saluted enthusiastically by elderly civilians. Others were
posted at street comers, rattling collecting-boxes.

I climbed the familiar staircase. Before I had time to touch
the bell, Frl. Schroeder mshed out to greet me with open
arms. She must have been watching for my arrival.

"Herr Bradshaw! Herr Bradshaw! Herr Bradshaw! So
you’ve come back to us at last! I declare I must give you a
hug! How well you’re looking! It hasn’t seemed the same
since you’ve been away.”

89

“How have things been going here, Frl. Schroeder?’'

“Well ... I suppose 1 mustn’t complain. In the summer,
they were bad. But now . . . Come inside, Herr Bradshaw,
Tve got a surprise for you.”

Gleefully she beckoned me across the hall, flung open the
door of the living-room with a dramatic gesture.

“Arthur!”

“My dear William, welcome to Germany 1”

“I’d no idea . .

“Herr Bradshaw, I declare you’ve grown!”

“Well . . . well . . . this is indeed a happy reunion. Ber-
lin is herself once more. I propose that we adjourn to my
room and drink a glass in celebration of Herr Bradshaw’s
return. You’ll join us, Frl. Schroeder, I hope?”

“Oh . . . Most kind of you, Herr Norris, I’m sure.”

“After you.”

“No, please.”

“I couldn’t think of it.”

There was a good deal more polite deprecation and bow-
ing before the two of them finally got through the doorway.
Familiarity didn’t seem to have spoilt their manners. Arthur
was as gallant, Frl. Schroeder as coquettish as ever.

The hig front bedroom was hardly recognizable. Arthur
had moved the bed over into the corner by the window and
pushed the sofa nearer to the stove. The stuffy-smelling pots
of ferns had disappeared, so had the numerous little crochet
mats on the dressing-table, and the metal figures of dogs on
the bookcase. The diree gorgeously tinted photochromes of
bathing nymphs were also missing; in their place I recog-
nized iJiree etchings which had hung in Arthur’s dining-room.
And, concealing the wash-stand, was a handsome Japanese
lacquer screen which used to stand in the hail of the Cour-
bierestrasse fiat.

“Flotsam,” Arthur had followed the direction of my glance,
“which I have been able, happily, to save from the wreck.”

“Now, Herr Bradshaw,” put in Frl. Schroeder, “tell me
your candid opinion. Herr Norris will have it that those

90

nymphs were ugly. I always thought them sweetly pretty
myself. Of course, I know some people would call them old-
fashioned.”

“I shouldn't have said they were ugly,” I replied, diplo-
matically. “But it s nice to have a change sometimes, don’t
you think?”

“Change is the spice of Life,” Arthur murmured, as he
fetched glasses from the cupboard. Inside, I caught sight of
an array of bottles: “Which may I ofEer you, William — klim-
mel or Benedictine? Frl. Schroeder, I know, prefers cherry
brandy.” ‘

Now that I could see the two of them by daylight, I was
struck by the contrast. Poor Frl. Schroeder seemed to have
got much older; indeed, she was quite an old woman. Her
face was pouched and wrinkled with worry, and her skin,
despite a ^ck layer of rouge and powder, looked sallow. She
hadn’t been getting enough to eat. Arthur, on the other hand,
looked positively younger. He was fatter in the cheeks and
fresh as a rosebud; barbered, manicured and perfumed. He
wore a big turquoise ring I hadn’t seen before, and an opulent
new brown suit. His wig struck a daring, more luxuriant
note. It was composed of glossy, waved locks, which
wreathed themselves around his temples in tropical abun-
dance. There was something jaunty, even bohemian, in his
whole appearance. He might have been a popular actor or a
rich violinist.

“How long have you been back here?” I asked.

“Let me see, it must be nearly two months now , , . how
time flies! I really must apologize for my shortcomings as a
correspondent. I’ve been so very busy; and Frl. Schroeder
seemed uncertain of your London address.”

'We’re neither of us much good at letter-writing. I’m
afraid.”

“The spirit was willing, dear boy. I hope you’ll believe that.
You were ever-present in my thoughts. It is indeed a pleasure
to have you back again. I feel that a load has been lifted
from my mind already.”

91

This sounded rather ominous. Perhaps he was on the rocks
again. I only hoped that poor Frl. Schroeder wouldn’t have
to suffer for it. There she sat, glass in hand, on the sofa, beam-
ing, drinking in every word; her legs were so short that her
black velvet shoes dangled an inch above the carpet.

“Just look, Herr Bradshaw,” she extended her wrist, “what
Herr Norris gave me for my birthday. I was so delighted, will
you believe me, that I started crying?”

It was a handsome-looking gold bracelet which must have
cost at least fifty marks. I was really touched:

“How nice of you, Arthur!”

He blushed. He was quite confused.

“A trifling mark of esteem. I can t tell you what a comfort
Frl. Schi’oeder has been to me. I should like to engage her
permanently as my secretary.”

“Oh, Herr Norris, how can you talk such nonsense!”

“I assure you, Frl. Schroeder, Tm quite in earnest.”

“You see how he makes fun of a poor old woman, Herr
Bradshaw?”

She was slightly drunk. When Arthur poured her out a
second glass of cherry brandy, she upset some of it over her
dress. When the commotion which followed this accident
had subsided, he said that he must be going out.

“Sorry as 1 am to break up this festive gathering . , . duty
calls. Yes, I shall hope to see you this evening, William. Shall
we have dinner together? Would that be nice?”

“Very nice.”

“Then 111 say au revoir, till eight o’clock.”

I got up to go and unpack. Frl. Schroeder followed me
into my room. She insisted on helping me. She was still tipsy
and kept putting things into the wrong places; shirts into
the drawer of the writing-table, books in tibe cupboard with
the socks. She couldn’t stop singing Arthur’s praises.

“He came as if Heaven had sent him. I’d got into arrears
with the rent, as I haven’t done since the inflation days. The
porter s wife came up to see me about it several times. Trl.
Schroeder,’ she said, we know you and we don’t want to be

92

hard on you. But weVe all got to live.’ I declare there were
evenings when I was so depressed I’d half a mind to put my
head in the oven. And then Herr Norris arrived. I thought
he’d just come to pay me a visit, as it were. ‘How much do
you charge for the front bedroom?’ he asked. You could have
knocked me over with a feather. ‘Fifty,’ I said. I didn’t dare
ask more, with the times so bad. I was trembling aU over for
fear he’d'think it was too much. And what do you think he
answered? ‘Frl. Schroeder,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t possibly
dream of letting you have less than sixty. It would be rob-
bery.’ I tell you, JHerr Bradshaw, I could have kissed his
hand.”

Tears stood in Frl. Schroeder s eyes. I was afraid she was
going to break down.

“And he pays you regularly?”

“On the moment, Herr Bradshaw. He couldn’t be more
punctual if it was you yourself. I’ve never known anybody to
be so particular. Why, do you know, he won’t even let me
run up a monthly bill for milk? He settles it by the week. ‘I
don’t like to feel that I owe anyone a pfennig,’ he says. . . .
I wish there was more like him.”

That evening, when I suggested eating at the usual res-
taurant, Arthur, to my surprise, objected:

“It’s so noisy there, dear boy. My sensitive nerves revolt
against the thought of an evening of jazz. As for the cooking,
it is remarkable, even in this benighted town, for its vileness.
Let’s go to the Montmartre.”

“But, my dear Arthur, it’s so terribly expensive.”

“Never mind. Never mind. In this brief life, one cannot
always be counting the cost. You’re my guest this evening.
Let’s forget the cares of this harsh world for a few hours and
enjoy ourselves.”

“It’s very kind of you.”

At the Montmartre, Arthur ordered champagne.

“This is such a peculiarly auspicious event that I feel we
may justifiably relax our rigid revolutionary standards.”

93

I laughed: “Business seems to be flourishing with you, I
must say.”

Arthur squeezed his chin cautiously between finger and
thumb.

‘1 can’t complain, William. At the moment. No. But I fear
I see breakers ahead.”

“Are you still importing and exporting?”

“Not exactly that. . . . No. . . . Well, in a sense, per-
haps.”

“Have you been in Paris all this time?”

“More or less. On and off.”

“What were you doing there?”

Arthur glanced uneasily round the luxurious little res-
taurant; smiled with great charm:

“That’s a very leading question, my dear William.”

“Were you working for Bayer?”

“Er — partly. Yes.” A vagueness had come into Arthur’s
eyes. He was trying to edge away from the subject.

“And you’ve been seeing him since you got back to Ber-
lin?”

“Of course.” He looked at me with sudden suspicion. “Why
do you ask?”

“I don’t know. When I saw you last, you didn’t seem very
pleased with him, that’s all.”

“Bayer and I are on excellent terms.” Arthur spoke with
emphasis, paused and added:

“You haven’t been telling anybody that I’ve quarrelled
with him, have you?”

“No, of course not, Arthur. Who do you suppose I’d teU?”

Arthur was unmistakably relieved.

“I beg your pardon, William. I might have known that I
could rely on your admirable discretion. But if, by any
chance, the story were to get about that Bayer and I were
not friendly, it might be exceedingly awkward for me, you
understand?”

I laughed.

“No, Arthur. I don’t understand anything.”

94

SmiKng, Arthur raised his glass.

“Have patience with me, William. You know, I always like
to have my little secrets. No doubt the time will come when
I shall be able to give you an explanation.”

“Or to invent one.”

“Ha ha. Ha ha. You’re as cruel as ever, I see , . . which
reminds me that I thoughtlessly made an appointment with
Anni for ten o’clock ... so that perhaps we ought to be
getting on with our dinner.”

“Of course. You mustn’t keep her waiting.”

For the rest of the meal Arthur questioned me about Lon-
don. The cities of Berlin and Paris were tactfully avoided.

Arthur had certainly transformed the daily routine of life
at Frl. Schroeder’s. Because he insisted on a hot bath every
morning, she had to get up an hour earlier, in order to stoke
the little old-fashioned boiler. She didn’t complain of this.
Indeed, she seemed to admire Arthur for the trouble he
caused her.

“He’s so particular, Herr Bradshaw. More like a lady than
a gentleman. Everything in his room has its place, and I get
into trouble if it isn’t all just as he wants it. I must say, though,
it’s a pleasure to wait on anybody who takes such care of his
things. You ought to see some of his shirts, and his ties. A
perfect dream! And his silk underclothes! ‘Herr Norris,’ I
said to him once, you should let me wear those; they’re too
fine for a man.’ I was only joking, of course. Herr Norris
does enjoy a joke. He takes in four daily papers, you know,
not to mention the weekly illustrateds, and I’m not allowed
to throw any of them away. They must all be piled up in
their proper order, according to the dates, if you please, on
top of the cupboard. It makes me wild, sometimes, when I
think of the dust they’re collecting. And then, every day, be-
fore he goes out, Herr Norris gives me a list as long as your
arm of messages I’ve got to give to people who ring up or
call. I have to remember all their names, and which ones he
wants to see, and which he doesn’t The door-bell’s for ever

95

ringing, nowadays, with telegrams for Herr Norris, and ex-
press letters and air mail and I don t know what else. This
last fortnight it’s been specially bad. If you ask me, I think
the ladies are his little weakness.”

“What makes you say that, Frl. Schroeder?”

“Well, IVe noticed that Herr Norris is always getting tele-
grams from Paris, I used to open them, at first, thinking it
might be something important which Herr Norris would like
to know at once. But I couldn’t make head or tail of them.
They were all from a lady named Margot. Very affectionate,
some of them were, too. 1 am sending you a hug,’ and last
time you forgot to enclose kisses.’ I must say I should never
have the nerve to write such things myself; fancy the clerk
at the post office reading them! These French girls must be
a shameless lot. From my experience when a woman makes a
parade of her feelings like tiiat, she’s not worth much. . . •
And then she wrote such a lot of nonsense, besides.”

“What sort of nonsense?”

“Oh, I forget half of it. Stuff about tea-pots and kettles and
bread and butter and cake.”

“How very queer.”

“You’re right, Herr Bradshaw, It is queer. , . , I’ll tell you
what I think.” Frl. Schroeder lowered her voice and glanced
towards the door; perhaps she had caught the trick from
Arthur. “I believe it’s a Idnd of secret language. You know?
Every word has a double meaning.”

“A code?”^

“Yes, that’s it.” Frl. Schroeder nodded mysteriously.

“But why should this girl write telegrams to Herr Norris
in code, do you suppose? It seems so pointless.”

Frl. Schroeder smiled at my innocence.

“Ah, Herr Bradshaw, you don’t know everything, although
you’re so clever and learned. It takes an old woman like me
to understand little mysteries of that sort. It’s perfectly plain:
this Margot, as she calls herself (I don’t suppose it’s her real
name), must be going to have a baby ”

96

‘*And you think that Herr Norris . . T

Frl. Schroeder nodded her head vigorously.

‘Its as clear as the nose on your face.”

“Really, I must say, I hardly think . .

“Oh, it’s all very well for you to laugh, Herr Bradshaw, but
I’m right, you see if I’m not. After all, Herr Norris is still in
the prime of life. I’ve known gentlemen have families who
were old enough to be his father. And, besides, what other
reason could she have for writing messages like that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“You see?” cried Frl. Schroeder triumphantly. “You don’t
know. Neither do I.”

Every morning Frl. Schroeder would come shuffling
through the flat at express speed, like a little steam-engine,
screaming:

“Herr Norris! Herr Norris! Your bath is ready! If you don’t
come quick the boiler will explode!”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Arthur, in English. “Just let me clap
on my wig.”

He was afraid to go into the bathroom until the water had
been turned on and all danger of an explosion was over. Frl.
Schroeder would rush in heroically, with face averted and,
muffling her hand in a towel, wrench at the hot tap. If the
bursting-point was already very near, this would at first emit
only clouds of steam, while the water in the boiler boiled
with a noise like thunder. Arthur, standing in the doorway,
watched Frl. Schroeder’s struggles with a nerv^ous, snarling
grimace, ready at any moment to bolt for his life.

After the bath came the barber’s boy, who was sent up
daily from the hairdresser’s at the comer to shave Arthur
and to comb his wig.

“Even in the wilds of Asia,” Arthur once told me, “I have
never shaved myself when it could possibly be avoided. It’s
one of those sordid annoying operations which put one in a
bad humour for the rest of Sie day ”

97

When the barber had gone, Arthur would call to me:

“Come in, dear boy, Tm visible now. Come and talk to me
while I powder my nose/’

Seated before the dressing-table in a delicate mauve wrap,
Arthur would impart to me the various secrets of his toilet.
He was astonishingly fastidious. It was a revelation to me to
discover, after all this time, the complex preparatiops which
led up to his every appearance in public. I hadr/t dreamed,
for example, that he spent ten minutes three times a week
in thinning his eyebrows with a pair of pincers. ( “Thinning,
William; not plucking. That’s a piece of efFeminacy which
I abhor.” ) A massage-roller occupied another fifteen minutes
daily of his valuable time; and then there was a thorough
manipulation of his cheeks with face cream ( seven or eight
minutes) and a little judicious powdering (three or four).
Pedicure, of course, was an extra; but Arthur usually spent
a few moments rubbing ointment on his toes to avert blisters
and corns. Nor did he ever neglect a gargle and mouth-wash.
(“Coming into daily contact, as I do, with members of the
proletariat, I have to defend myself against positive on-
slaughts of microbes.”) All this is not to mention the days on
which he actually made up his face. (“I felt I needed a dash
of colour this morning; the weather’s so depressing.” ) Or the
great fortnightly ablution of his hands and wrists with depila-
tory lotion. (“I prefer not to be reminded of our kinship with
the larger apes.”)

After these tedious exertions, it was no wonder that Ar-
thur had a healthy appetite for his breakfast. He had suc-
ceeded in coaching Frl. Schroeder as a toast-maker; nor did
she once, after the first few days, bring him an unduly hard-
boiled egg. He had home-made marmalade, prepared by an
English lady who hved in Wihnersdorf and charged nearly
double the market price. He used his own special coffee-pot,
which he had brought with him from Paris, and drank a
special blend of coffee, which had to be sent direct from
Hamburg. “Little things in themselves,” as Arthur said,
“which I have come, through long and painful experience,

98

to value more than many of the over-advertised and over-
rated luxuries of life.”

At half -past ten he went out, and I seldom saw him again
until the evening, I was busy with my teaching. After lunch,
he made a habit of coming home and lying down for an hour
on his bed. “Believe me or not, William, I am able to make
my mind an absolute blank for whole minutes at a time. It’s
a matter ""of practice, of course. Without my siesta, I should
quickly become a nervous wreck.”

Three nights a week, Frl. Anni came; and Arthur indulged
in his singular pleasures. The noise was perfectly audible in
the living-room, where Frl. Schroeder sat sewing.

“Dear, dear!” she said to me once, “I do hope Herr Norris
won’t injure himself. He ought to be more careful at his time
of life.”

One afternoon, about a week after my arrival, I happened
to be in the flat alone. Even Frl. Schroeder had gone out. The
door-bell rang. It was a telegram for Arthur, from Paris.

The temptation was simply not to be resisted; I didn’t even
struggle against it. To make things easier for me, the enve-
lope had not been properly stuck down; it came open in my
hand.

“Am very thirsty,” I read, *Tiope another kettle will boil
soon kisses are for good boys. — Margot.”

I fetched a bottle of glue from my room and fixed the
envelope down carefully. Then I left it on Arthur’s table
and went out to the cinema.

At dinner, that evening, Arthur was visibly depressed. In-
deed, he seemed to have no appetite, and sat staring in front
of him with a bilious frown.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Things in general, dear boy. The state of this wicked
world. A touch of Weltschmerz, that’s all.”

“Cheer up. The course of true love never did run smooth,
you know.”

But Arthur didn’t react. He didn’t even ask me what I
meant. Towards the end of our meal, I had to go to the back

99

of the restaurant to make a telephone call. As I returned I
saw that he was absorbed in reading a piece of paper which
he stuffed hastily into his pocket as I approached. He wasn’t
quite quick enough. I had recognized the telegram.

CHAPTER TEN

Arthur looked up at me with eyes which were a little too
innocent,

“By the way, William,” his tone was carefully casual, “do
you happen to be doing anything next Thursday evening?”

“Nothing that I know of.”

“Excellent. Then may I invite you to a little dinner-party?”

“That sounds very nice. Who else is coming?”

“Oh, it’s to be a very small affair. Just ourselves and Baron
von Pregnitz.”

Arthur had brought out the name in the most offhand
manner possible.

“Kuno!” I exclaimed.

‘Tou seem very surprised, William, not to say displeased.”
He was the picture of innocence. “I always thought you and
he were such good friends?”

“So did I, until the last time we met. He practically cut me
dead.”

“Oh, my dear boy, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think
that must have been partly your imagination. I’m sure he’d
never do a thing like that; it doesn’t sound like him at all ”

^TTou don’t suggest I dreamed it, do you?”

“I’m not doubting your word for an instant, of course. If

100

he was, as you say, a little brusque, I expect he was worried
by his many duties. As you probably know, he has a post
under the new administration.”

T think I did read about it in the newspapers, yes.”

‘‘And anyhow, even if he did behave a little strangely on
the occasion you mention, I can assure you that he was acting
under a misapprehension which has since been removed.”

I smiled.

“You needn't make such a mystery out of it, Arthur. I know
half the story already, so you may as well tell me the other
half. Your secretary had something to do with it, I think?”

Arthur wrinkled up his nose with a ridiculously fastidious
expression.

“Don’t call him that, William, please. Just say Schmidt.
I don’t care to be reminded of the association. Those who are
foolish enough to keep snakes as pets usually have cause to
regret it, sooner or later.”

“All right, then. Schmidt. ... Go on.”

“I see that, as usual, you’re better informed than I’d sup-
posed,” Arthur sighed. “Well, weU, if you want to hear the
whole melancholy truth, you must, painful as it is for me to
dwell on. As you know, my last weeks at the Courbierestrasse
were spent in a state of excruciating financial anxiety.”

“I do indeed.”

“Well, without going into a lot of sordid details which are
neither here nor there, I was compelled to try and raise
money. I cast about in all sorts of likely and unlikely direc-
tions. And, as a last desperate resort, when the wolf was
literally scratching at the door, I put my pride in my
pocket. . . .”

“And asked Kuno to lend you some?”

“Thank you, dear boy. With your customary consideration
for my feelings, you help me over the most painful part of
the story. ... Yes, I sank so low. I violated one of my most
sacred principles — never to borrow from a friend. (For I may
say I did regard him as a friend, a dear friend.) Yes . .

“And he refused? The stingy brute!”

101

‘‘No, William. There you go too fast. You misjudge him.
I have no reason to suppose that he would have refused.
Quite the contrary. This was the first time I had ever ap-
proached him. But Schmidt got to know of my intentions. I
can only suppose he had been systematically opening all
my letters. At any rate, he went straight to Pregnitz and ad-
vised him not to advance me the money; giving aP sorts of
reasons, most of which were the most monstrous slanders.
Despite all my long experience of human nature, I should
hardly have believed such treachery and ingratitude pos-
sible . .

“Whatever made him do it?”

‘^Chiefly, I think, pure spite. As far as one can follow the
workings of his foul mind. But, undoubtedly, the creature
was also afraid that, in this case, he would be deprived of
his pound of flesh. He usually arranged these loans himself,
you know, and subtracted a percentage before handing over
the money at all. . . . It humbles me to the earth to have to
teU you this.”

“And I suppose he was right? I mean, you weren’t going
to give him any, this time, were you?”

“Well, no. .After his villainous behaviour over the sitting-
room carpet, it was hardly to be expected that I should. You
remember the carpet?”

“I should think I did.”

“The carpet incident was, so to speak, the declaration of
war between us. Although I still endeavoured to meet his
demands with the utmost fairness.”

“And what did Kuno have to say to all this?”

“He was, naturally, most upset, and indignant. And, I
must add, rather unnecessarily unkind. He wrote me a most
unpleasant letter. Quite gentlemanly, of course; he is always
that. But frigid. Very frigid.”

‘Tm surprised that he took Schmidts word against
yours.”

“No doubt Schmidt had ways and means of convincing
him. There are some incidents in my career, as you doubt-

102

less know, which are very easily capable of misinterpreta-
tion.”

“And he brought me into it, as well?”

“I regret to say that he did. That pains me more than any-
thing else in the whole aflEair; to think that you should have
been dragged down into the mud in which I was already
wallowing.”

“Whaf exactly did he tell Kuno about me?”

“He seems to have suggested, not to put too fine a point
upon it, that you were an accompHce in my nefarious crimes.”

“Well Im damned.”

“I need hardly add that he painted us both as Bolsheviks
of the deepest crimson.”

“He flattered me there, I m afraid.”

“Well — er — ^yes. That s one way of looking at it, of course.
Unfortunately, revolutionary ardour is no recommendation
to the Baron's favour. His view of the members of the Left
Wing is somewhat primitive. He imagines us with pockets
full of bombs.”

“And yet, in spite of all this, he s ready to have dinner with
us next Thursday?”

“Oh, our relations are very difierent now, Tm glad to say.
IVe seen him several times since my return to Berlin. Con-
siderable diplomacy was required, of course; but I think IVe
more or less convinced him of the absurdity of Schmidt s
accusation. By a piece of good luck, I was able to be of
service in a little matter. Pregnitz is essentially a reasonable
man; he’s always open to conviction.”

I smiled: “You seem to have put yourself to a good deal of
trouble on his account. I hope itll prove to have been worth
while.”

“One of my characteristics, William, you may call it a
weakness if you like, is that I can never bear to lose a friend,
if it can possibly be avoided.”

“And you're anxious that I shan’t lose a friend either?”

“Well, yes, I must say, if I thought I had been the cause,
even indirectly, of a permanent estrangement between Preg-

103

nitz and yourself, it would make me very unhappy. If any
little doubts or resentments do still exist on either side, I
sincerely hope that tliis meeting will put an end to them.”

“There’s no ill feeling as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, dear boy. Very glad. It’s so
stupid to bear grudges. In this life one’s apt to lose a great
deal through a mistaken sense of pride.”

“A great deal of money, certainly.”

“Yes . . , that too.” Arthur pinched his chin and looked
thoughtful. “Although I was speaking, just then, more from
the spiritual point of view than the material.”

His tone implied a gentle rebuke.

“By the way,” I asked, “what’s Schmidt doing now?”

“My dear William,” Arthur looked pained, “how in the
world should I know?”

“I thought he might have been bothering you.”

“During my first month in Paris, he wrote me a number of
letters full of the most preposterous threats and demands for
money. I simply disregarded them. Since then, I’ve heard
nothing more.”

“He’s never turned up at Frl. Schroeder’s?”

“Thank God, no. Not up to now. It’s one of my nightmares
that hell somehow discover the address.”

“I suppose he’s more or less bound to, sooner or later?”

“Don’t say that, William. Don’t say that, please. ... I
have enough to worry me as it is. The cup of my afflictions
would indeed be fuU.”

As we walked to the restaurant on the evening of the
dinner-party, Arthur primed me with final instructions.

“You will be most careful, won’t you, dear boy, not to let
drop any reference to Bayer or to our political beliefs?”

“I’m not completely mad.”

“Of course not, Wilham. Please don’t think I meant any-
thing offensive. But even the most cautious of us betray our-
selves at times. . . . Just one other little point: perhaps, at
this stage of the proceedings, it would be more politic not

104

to address Pregnitz by his Christian name. It’s as well to
preserve one’s distance. That sort of thing’s so easily mis-
understood.”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll be as stiff as a poker.”

“Not s^, dear boy, I do beg. Perfectly easy, perfectly
natural. A shade formal, perhaps, just at first. Let him make
the advances. A little polite reserve, that’s all.”

“If you'go on much longer, you’ll get me into such a state
that I shan’t be able to open my mouth.”

We arrived at the restaurant to find Kuno already seated
at the table Arthur had reserved. The cigarette between his
fingers was burnt down almost to the end; his face wore an
expression of well-bred boredom. At the sight of him, Arthur
positively gasped with horror.

“My dear Baron, do forgive me, please. I wouldn’t have
had this happen for the world. Did I say half -past? I did?
And you’ve been waiting a quarter of an hour? You over-
whelm me with shame. Really, I don’t know how to apologize
enough.”

Arfliur’s fulsomeness seemed to embarrass the Baron as
much as it did myself. He made a faint, distasteful gesture
with his fin-like hand and murmured something which I
couldn’t hear.

“. . . too stupid of me. I simply can’t conceive how I can
have been so foolish. . .

We all sat down, Arthur prattled on and on; his apologies
developed like an air with variations. He blamed his memory
and recalled other instances when it had failed him. (“I’m
reminded of a most unfortunate occasion in Washington on
which I entirely forgot to attend an important diplomatic
function at the house of the Spanish Ambassador.”) He
found fault with his watch; lately, he told us, it had been
gaining. (“I usually make a point, about this time of year, of
sending it to the makers in Zurich to be overhauled.”) And
he assured the Baron, at least five times, that I had no re-
sponsibility whatever for the mistake. I wished I could sink
through the floor. Arthur, I could see, was nervous and un-

105

sure of himself; the variations wavered uneasily and threat-
ened, at every moment, to collapse into discords. I had sel-
dom known him to be so verbose and never so boring. Kuno
had retired behind his monocle. His face was as discreet as
the menu, and as unintelligible.

By the middle of the fish, Arthur had talked himself out. A
silence followed which was even more uncomfortable than
his chatter. We sat round the elegant little dinner-table like
three people absorbed in a difficult chess problem. Artliur
manipulated his chin and cast furtive, despairing glances in
my direction, signalling for help. I declined to respond. I
was sulky and resentful. Fd come here this evening on the
understanding that Arthur had already more or less patched
things up with Kuno; that the way was paved to a general
reconciliation. Nothing of the kind. Kuno was still suspicious
of Arthur, and no wonder, considering the way he was be-
having now. I felt his eye questioningly upon me from time
to time and went on eating, looking neither to right nor to
left.

“Mr, Bradshaw’s just returned from England.” It was as
though Arthur had given me a violent push into the middle
of the stage. His tone implored me to play my part. They
were both looking at me, now. Kuno was interested but cau-
tious; Arthur frankly abject. They were so funny in their
different ways that I had to smile.

“Yes,” I said, “at the begiiming of the month.”

“Excuse me, you were in London?”

“Part of the time, yes.”

“Indeed?” Kuno s eye fit up with a tender gleam. “And how
was it there, may I ask?”

“We had lovely weather in September.”

“Yes, I see. , , A faint, fishy smile played over his lips;
he seemed to savour delicious memories. His monocle shone
with a dreamy light. His distinguished, preserved profile be-
came pensive and maudlin and sad,

“I shall always maintain,” put in the incorrigible Arthur,
“that London in September has a charm all its own. I re-

106

member one exceptionally beautiful autumn — ^in nineteen
hundred and five. I used to stroll down to Waterloo Bridge
before breakfast and admire St. Pauls. At that time, I had
a suite at the Savoy Hotel. . .

Kuno appeared not to have heard him.

‘"And, excuse me, how are the Horse Guards?”

“Still sitting there.”

“Yes? I am glad to hear this, you see. Very glad. . .

I grinned. Kuno smiled, fishy and subtle. Arthur uttered
a surprisingly coarse snigger which he instantly checked
with his hand. Then Kuno threw back his head and laughed
out loud: “Hoi Ho! Ho!” I had never heard him really laugh
before. His laugh was a curiosity, an heirloom; somethmg
handed down from the dinner-tables of the last century;
aristocratic, manly and sham, scarcely to be heard nowadays
except on the legitimate stage. He seemed a little ashamed
of it himself, for, recovering, he added, in a tone of apol-
ogy:

‘Tou see, excuse me, I can remember them very well.”

“Fm reminded,” Arthur leaned forward across the table;
his tone became spicy, “of a story which used to be told
about a certain peer of the realm . . . let s call him Lord X.
I can vouch for it, because I met him once in Cairo, a most
eccentric man. . .

There was no doubt about it, the party had been saved. I
began to breathe more freely. Kuno relaxed by imperceptible
stages, from polite suspicion to positive jolHty. Arthur, re-
covering his nerve, was naughty and funny. We drank a good
deal of brandy and three whole bottles of Pommard. I told an
extremely stupid story about the two Scotsmen who went
into a synagogue. Kuno started to nudge me with his foot.
In an absurdly short space of time I looked at the clock and
saw it was eleven.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Arthur. “If you'll forgive me,
I must fly. A little engagement . .

I looked at Arthur questioningly. I had never known him
to make appointments at this hour of the night; besides, it

107

wasn't Anni's evening. Kuno didn't seem at all put out, how-
ever. He was most gracious.

“Don't mention it, my dear fellow. . . . We quite under-
stand." His foot pressed mine under the table.

“You know," I said, when Arthur had left us, “I really ought
to be getting home, too."

“Oh, surely not."

“I think so,” I said firmly, smiling and moving my foot
away. He was squeezing a com.

“You see, I should like so very much to show you my new
flat. We can be there in the car in ten minutes,"

“I should love to see it; some other time.”

He smiled faintly.

“Then may I, perhaps, give you a lift home?'*

“Thank you very much.”

The remarkably handsome chauffeur saluted pertly,
tucked us into the depths of the vast black limousine. As we
slid forward along the Kurfiirstendamm, Kuno took my hand
under the fur rug.

“You're still angry with me," he murmured reproachfully.

“Why should I be?”

“Oh yes, excuse me, you are.”

“Really, I'm not.”

Kuno gave my hand a limp squeeze.

“May I ask you something?"

“Ask away."

“You see, I don't wish to be personal. Do you believe in
Platonic friendship?”

“I expect so,” 1 said, guardedly.

The answer seemed to satisfy him. His tone became more
confidential; “You're sure you won't come up and see my flat?
Not for five minutes?”

“Not to-night.”

“Quite sure?" He squeezed.

“Quite, quite sure."

“Some other evening?” Anotier squeeze.

108

I laughed: T think I should see it better in the daytime,
shouldn’t ir ^

Kuno sighed gently, but did not pursue the subject. A few
moments later, the limousine stopped outside my door*
Glancing up at Arthur’s window, I saw that the light was
burning. I didn’t remark on this to Kuno, however.

"Well, good night, and thank you for the lift.”

"Do not mention it, please.”

I nodded towards the chauffeur: "Shall I tell him to take
you home?’’

"No, thank you,” Kuno spoke rather sadly, but with an at-
tempt at a smile. "I’m afraid not. Not just yet.”

He sank back upon the cushions, the smile still frozen on
his face, his monocle catching a ghostly glassy gleam from
the street lamp as he was driven away.

As I entered the flat, Arthur appeared, in shirt-sleeves, at
his bedroom doorway. He seemed rather perturbed.

"Back already, William?”

I grinned: "Aren’t you pleased to see me, Arthur?”

"Of course, dear boy. What a question! I didn’t expect
you quite so soon, that’s all.”

"I Imow you didn’t. Your appointment doesn’t seem to have
kept you very long, either ”

"It — er — fell through.” Arthur yawned. He was too sleepy
even to tell lies.

I laughed: "You meant well, I know. Don’t worry. We
parted on the best of terms.”

He brightened at once: “You did? Oh, I’m so very glad.
For the moment, I was afraid some little hitch might have
occurred. Now I can go to sleep with a mind relieved. Once
again, William, I must thank you for your invaluable sup-
port.”

"Always glad to oblige,” I said. "Good night.”

109

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The first week in November came and the traflSc strike was
declared. It was ghastly, sopping weather. Everything out
of doors was covered with a layer of greasy, fallen dirt. A
few trams were running, policemen posted fore and aft. Some
of these were attacked, the windows smashed and the pas-
sengers forced to get out. The streets were deserted, wet, raw
and grey. Von Papen s Government was expected to proclaim
martial law. Berlin seemed profoundly indifferent. Proclama-
tions, shootings, arrests; they were all nothing new. Helen
Pratt was putting her money on Schleicher: “He’s the foxiest
of the lot,” she told me. “Look here. Bill, Til bet you five
marks he’s in before Christmas. Like to take me on?” I de-
clined.

Hitler’s negotiations with the Right had broken down; the
Hakenkreuz was even flirting mildly with the Hammer and
Sickle. Telephone conversations, so Arthur told me, had al-
ready taken place between the enemy camps. Nazi storm-
troopers joined with Communists in the crowds which jeered
at the black-legs and pelted them with stones. Meanwhile,
on the soaked advertisement pillars, Nazi posters represented
the K.P.D. as a bogy skeleton in Red Army uniform. In a few
days there would be another election; our fourth this year.
Political meetings were well attended; they were cheaper
than going to the movies or getting drunk. Elderly people
sat indoors, in the damp, shabby houses, brewing malt coffee
or weak tea and talking without animation of the Smash.

On November 7th, the election results were out. The Nazis
had lost two million votes. The Communists had gained
eleven seats. They had a majority of over 100,000 in Berlin.

110

^You see/" I told Frl. Schroeder, “it"s all your doing/" We had
persuaded her to go down to the beer-shop at the corner and
vote, for the first time in her life. And now she was as de-
lighted as if she"d backed a winner: "Herr Norris! Herr
Norris! Only think! I did just what you told me; and it’s all
come out as you said! The porter’s wife’s ever so cross. She’s
followed the elections for years, and she would have it that
the NazisVere going to win another million this time. I had
a good laugh at her, I can tell you. ‘Aha, Frau Schneider!"
I said to her, T understand somediing about politics, too, you
see!”’

During the morning, Arthur and I went round to the Wil-
helmstrasse, to Bayer’s office, “for a little taste,” as he put it,
"of the fruits of victory.” Several hundred others seemed
to have had the same idea. There was such a crowd of people
coming and going on the stairs that we had difficulty in
getting into iJie building at all. Everybody was in the best
of spirits, shouting to each other, greeting, whistling, sing-
ing. As we struggled upwards, we met Otto on his way down.
He nearly wrung my hand off in his excitement.

“Mensch! Willi! Jetzt gehfs lost Just let them talk about
forbidding the Party now! If they do we’ll fight! The old
Nazis are done for, that’s certain. In six months, Hitler won’t
have any storm-troops left!”

Half a dozen of his friends were with him. They all shook
my hand with the warmth of long-lost brothers. Meanwhile,
Otto had flung himself upon Arthur like a young bear. "What,
Arthur, you old sow, you here too? Isn’t it fine? Isn’t it grand?
Why, I’m so pleased I could knock you into the middle of
next week!”

He dealt Arthur an affectionate hook in the ribs which
made him squirm. Several of the bystanders laughed sym-
pathetically. "Good old Arthur!” exclaimed one of Otto’s
friends loudly. The name was overheard, taken up, passed
from mouth to mouth. “Arthur . . . who’s Arthur? Why,
man, don’t you know who Arthur is?” No, they didn’t know.
Equally, they didn’t care. It was a name, a focus-point for

111

the enthusiasm of all these excited young people; it served
its purpose, “Arthur! Arthur!” was caught up on all sides.
People were shouting it on the floor above us; in the hallway
below. “Arthur s here!” “Arthur for ever!” “We want Arthur!”
The storm of voices had risen in a moment. A mighty cheer,
exuberant, half -humorous, burst spontaneously from a hun-
dred throats. Another followed it, and another. The cra2y
old staircase shook; a tiny flake of plaster was dislodged from
the ceiling. In this confined space, the reverberation was ter-
rific; the crowd was excited to find what a noise it could
make. There was a powerful, convulsive, surging movement
inwards, towards the unseen object of admiration. A wave
of admirers elbowed their way up the stairs, to collide with
another wave, cascading down from above. Everybody
wanted to touch Arthur. A rain of hand-claps descended
on his wincing shoulders. An ill-timed attempt to hoist him
into the air nearly resulted in his being pitched headlong
over the banisters. His hat had been knocked off. I had
managed to save it and was fully expecting to have to rescue
his wig as well. Gasping for breath, Arthur tried, in a mud-
dled way, to rise to tibe occasion: “Thank you . . he man-
aged to articulate. “Most kind . . . really don’t deserve . . .
good gracious! Oh dear!”

He might have been quite seriously injured, had not Otto
and his friends forced a way for him to the top of the stair-
case. We scrambled in the wake of their powerful, barging
bodies. Arthur clutched my arm, half scared, half shyly
pleased. “Fancy their knowing me, William,” he panted into
my ear.

But the crowd hadn’t done with him yet. Now that we had
reached the oflSce door, we occupied a position of vantage
and could be seen by the mass of struggling people wedged
in the staircase below. At the sight of Arthur, another terrific
cheer shook the building. “Speech!” yelled somebody. And
the cry was echoed: “Speech! Speech! Speech!” Those on
the stairs began a rhythmical stamping and shouting; the
heavy tread of their boots was as formidable as the stroke of

112

a giant piston. If Arthur didn’t do something to stop it, it
seemed probable that the entire staircase would collapse.

At this critical moment, the door of the oflBce opened. It
was Bayer himself, come out to see what all the noise was
about. His smiling eyes took in the scene with the amusement
of a tolerant school-master. The uproar did not disconcert
him in the least; he was used to it. Smiling, he shook hands
with the scared and embarrassed Arthur, laying a reassuring
hand upon his shoulder. “Ludwig!” roared the onlookers.
“Ludwig! Arthur! Speech!” Bayer laughed at them and made
a good-humoured gesture of salute and dismissal. Then he
turned, escorting Arthur and myself into the office. The
noise outside gradually subsided into singing and shouted
jokes. In the outer office the typists were doing their best to
carry on work amidst groups of eagerly arguing men and
women. The walls were plastered with news-sheets display-
ing the election results. We elbowed our way into Bayers
little room. Arthur sank at once into a chair and began fan-
ning himself with his recovered hat.

“Well, well . . . dear me! I feel quite carried away, as it
were, in the whirl of history; distinctly battered. This is
indeed a red-letter day for the Cause.”

Bayer s eyes regarded him with vivid, faintly amused in-
terest.

“It surprises you, eh?”

“Well — er — I must admit that hardly, in my most sanguine
dreams, had I dared to expect such a very decisive — er —
victory,”

Bayer nodded encouragingly.

“It is good, yes. But it will be unwise, I think, to exaggerate
the importances of this success. Many factors have con-
tributed to it. It is, how do you call, symptomic?”

“Symptomatic,” Arthur corrected, with a little cough. His
blue eyes shifted uneasily over the litter of papers on Bayer s
writing-table. Bayer gave him a brilliant smile.

“Ah, yes. Symptomatic. It is symptomatic of the phase
through which we are at present passing. We are not yet

113

ready to cross the Wilhelmstrasse.” He made a humorous
gesture of his hand, indicating, through the window, the di-
rection of the Foreign OflBce and Hindenburg’s residence,
“No. Not quite yet.”

“Do you think,” I asked, “that this means the Nazis are
done for?”

He shook his head with decision. “Unfortunately, no. We
may not be so optimistic. This reverse is for them” of a tem-
porary character only. You see, Mr. Bradshaw, the economic
situation is in their favour. We shall hear much more of our
friends, I think.”

“Oh, please don't say anything so unpleasant,” murmured
Arthur, fidgeting with his hat. His eyes continued furtively
to explore the writing-table. Bayei's glance followed them.

“You do not like the Nazis, eh, Norris?”

His tone was rich with amusement. He appeared to find
Arthur extremely funny at this precise moment. I was at a loss
to understand why. Moving over to the table, he began, as if
abstractedly, ‘‘O handle the papers which lay there.

“Really!” protested Arthur, in shocked tones. “How can
you ask? Naturally, I dislike them. Odious creatures. . . .”

“Ah, but you should not!” With great deliberation, Bayer
took a key from his pocket, unlocked a drawer in the writing-
table, and drew from it a heavy sealed packet. His red -brown
eyes sparkled teasingly. “This outlook is quite false. The
Nazi of to-day can be the communist of to-morrow. When
they have seen where their leaders’ programme has brought
them, they may not be so very diflBcult to convince. I wish
all opposition could be thus overcome. There are others,
you see, who will not listen to such arguments.”

Smiling, he turned the packet in his hands. Arthur s eyes
were fastened upon it, as if in unwilling fascination; Bayer
seemed to be amusing himself by exerting his hypnotic
powers. At all events, Arthur was plainly most uncom-
fortable.

“Er — ^yes. Well . . . you may be right. . . .”

There was a curious silence. Bayer was smiling to himself,

114

subtly, with the comers of his lips. I had never seen him in
this mood before. Suddenly, he appeared to become aware
of what he was holding.

“Why, of course, my dear Norris . . . These are the docu-
ments I had promised to show you. Can you be so kind as
to let me have them to-morrow again? We have to forward
them, you know, as quickly as possible.”

“Certainly. Of course. . . Arthur had fairly jumped out
of his seat to receive the packet. He was like a dog which
has been put on trust for a lump of sugar. “Til take the great-
est care of them, I assure you.”

Bayer smiled, but said notliing.

Some minutes later, he escorted us affably out of the
premises by tlie back staircase which led down into the court-
yard. Arthur thus avoided another encounter with his ad-
mirers.

As we walked away along the street, he seemed thoughtful
and vaguely unhappy. Twice he sighed.

“Feeling tired?” I asked.

“Not tired, dear boy. No ... I was merely indulging in
my favourite vice of philosophizing. When you get to my
age you'll see more and more clearly how very strange and
complex life is. Take this morning, for instance. The simple
enthusiasm of all those young people; it touched me very
deeply. On such occasions, one feels oneself so unworthy.
1 suppose there are individuals who do not suffer from a con-
science. But I am not one of them.”

The strangest thing about this odd outburst was that Ar-
thur obviously meant what he said. It was a genuine frag-
ment of a confession, but I could make nothing of it.

“Yes,” I encouraged experimentally, “I sometimes feel like
that myself.”

Arthur didn't respond. He merely sighed for the third time.
A sudden shadow of anxiety passed over his face; hastily he
fingered the bulge in his pocket made by the papers which
Bayer had given him. They were stiH there. He breathed
relief.

115

November passed without much event. I had more pupils
again, and was busy. Bayer gave me two long manuscripts to
translate.

There were rumours that the K.P.D. would be forbidden;
soon, in a few weeks. Otto was scornful. The Government
would never dare, he said. The Party would fight. All the
members of his cell had revolvers. They hung them, he told
me, by strings from the bars of a cellar-grating in their Lokal,
so that the police shouldn’t find them. The police were very
active these days. Berlin, we heard, was to be cleaned up.
Plain-clothes men had paid several unexpected calls on Olga,
but had failed, so far, to find anything. She was being very
careful.

We dined with Kuno several times and had tea at his flat.
He was sentimental and preoccupied by turns. The intrigues
which were going on within the Cabinet probably caused
him a good deal of worry And he regretted the freedom of
his earlier bohemian existence. His public responsibilities
debarred him from the society of the young men I had met
at his Mecklenburg villa. Only their photographs remained
to console him now, bound in a sumptuous album which he
kept locked away in an obscure cupboard. Kuno showed it
to me one day when we were alone.

“Sometimes, in the evenings, I like to look at them, you
see? And then I make up a story to myself that we are all
living on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Excuse me,
you don’t think this very silly, I hope?”

“Not at all,” I assured him.

“You see, I knew you’d understand.” Encouraged, he pro-
ceeded shyly to further confessions. The desert island fantasy
was nothing new. He had been cherishing it for months al-
ready; it had developed gradually into a private cult. Under
its imuence he had acquired a small library of stories for
boys, most of them in English, which dealt with this par-
ticular kind of adventure. He had told his bookseller that he
wanted them for a nephew in London. Kuno had found most

116

of the books subtly unsatisfactory. There had been grown-ups
in them, or buried treasures, or marvellous scientiSc inven-
tions. He had no use for any of these. Only one stoiy had
really pleased him. It was called The Seven Who Got Lost.

‘'This is the work of genius, I find.” Kuno was quite in
earnest. His eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. ‘1 should be so
very happy if you would care to read it, you see?”

I took the book home. It was certainly not at all bad of
its kind. Seven boys, of ages ranging from sixteen to nine-
teen, are washed ashore on an uninhabited island, where
there is water and plenty of vegetation. They have no food
with them and no tools but a broken penknife. The book was
a matter-of-fact account, cribbed largely from the Swiss
Family Robinson, of how they hunted, fished, built a hut and
finally got themselves rescued. I read it at a sitting and
brought it back to Kuno next day. He was delighted when I
praised it.

“You remember Jack?”

“The one who was so good at fishing? Yes.”

“Now tell me, please, is he not Hke Gunther?”

I had no idea who Gunther was, but rightly guessed hin) to
have been one of the Mecklenburg house-party.

“Yes, he is, rather.”

“Oh, I am so glad you find this, too. And Tony?”

“The one who was such a marvellous climber?”

Kuno nodded eagerly: “Doesn’t he remind you of Heinz?”

“I see what you mean.”

In this way we worked through the other characters,
Teddy, Bob, Rex, Dick: Kuno supplied a counterpart to
each. I congratulated myself on having really read the book
and being thus able to pass this curious examination with
credit. Last of all came Jimmy, the hero, the champion swim-
mer, the boy who always led the others in an emergency and
had a brainwave to solve every diflSculfy.

“You didn’t recognize him, perhaps?’

Kuno’s tone was oddly, ludicrously coy. I saw that I must

117

beware of giving the wrong answer. But what on earth was I
to say?

‘1 did have some idea . . I ventured.

“You did?” He was actually blushing.

I nodded, smiling, trying to look intelligent, waiting for a
hint.

“He is myself, you see.” Kuno had the simplicity of com-
plete conviction. “When I was a boy. But exactly . . . This
writer is a genius. He tells things about me which nobody
else can know. I am Jimmy. Jimmy is myself. It is marvel-
lous.”

“It’s certainly very strange,” I agreed.

After this, we had several talks about the island. Kuno
told me exactly how he pictured it, and dwelt in detail upon
the appearance and characteristics of his various imaginary
companions. He certainly had a most vivid imagination. I
wished that the author of The Seven Who Got Lost could
have been there to hear him. He would have been startled
to behold the exotic fruit of his unambitious labours. I
gathered that I was Kuno’s only confidant on the subject. I
felt as embarrassed as some unfortunate person who has
been forcibly made a member of a secret society. If Arthur
was with us, Kuno showed only too plainly his desire to get
rid of him and be alone with me. Arthur noticed this, of
course, and irritated me by putting the obvious construction
on our private interviews. All the same, I hadn’t the heart
to give Kuno’s poor Httle mystery away.

“Look here,” I said to him once, “why don’t you do it?”

“Please?”

“Why don’t you clear out to the Pacific and find an island
like the one in the book, and reaUy live there? Other people
have done it. There’s absolutely no reason why you
shouldn’t.”

Kuno shook his head sadly.

“Excuse me, no. It’s impossible.”

His tone was so final and so sad that I was silent. Nor did
I ever make such a suggestion to him again.

118

As the month advanced, Arthur became increasingly de-
pressed. I soon noticed that he had less money than formerly.
Not that he complained. Indeed, he had become most secre-
tive about his troubles. He made his economies as unob-
trusively as possible, giving up taxis on the ground that a
bus was just as quick, avoiding the expensive restaurants
because, as he said, rich food disagreed with his digestion.
Annfs visits were less frequent also. Arthur had taken to
going to bed early. During the day, he was out more than
ever. He spent a good deal of his time, I discovered, in Bayer s
oflSce.

It wasn’t long before another telegram arrived from Paris.
I had no diflBculty in persuading Frl. Schroeder, whose curi-
osity was as shameless as my own, to steam open the enve-
lope before Arthur s return for his afternoon nap. With heads
pressed close together, we read:

Tea you sent no good at all cannot understand why

beheve you have another girl no kisses.

Margot

‘Tou see,” exclaimed Frl. Schroeder, in delighted horror,
"she’s been trying to stop it.”

"What on earth . .

"Why, Herr Bradshaw,” in her impatience she gave my
hand a little slap, "how can you be so dense! The baby, of
course. He must have sent her some stuff. . . . Oh, these
men! If he’d only come to me, I could have told him what
to do. It never fails.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Frl Schroeder, don’t say anything
about this to Herr Norris.”

"Oh, Herr Bradshaw, you can trust me!”

I think, aU the same, that her maimer must have given
Arthur some hint of what we had done. For, after this, the
French telegrams ceased to arrive. Arthur, I supposed, had
prudently arranged to have them delivered to some other
address.

119

And then one evening early in December, when Arthur
was out and Frl. Schroeder was having a bath, the door-bell
rang. I answered it myself. There, on the threshold, stood
Schmidt.

"Good evening, Mr. Bradshaw.”

He looked shabby and unkempt. His great, greasy moon-
face was unwholesomely white. At first I thought he must be
drunk.

"What do you want?” I asked.

Schmidt grinned unpleasantly. “I want to see Norris.” He
must have read what was in my mind, for he added: “You
needn t bother to tell me any hes, because I know he s hving
here, now, see?”

“Well, you can t see him now. He’s gone out.”

"Are you sure he’s out?” Schmidt regarded me smiling,
through half-closed eyes.

"Perfectly. Otherwise I shouldn’t have told you so.”

“So ... I see.”

We stood looking at each other for some moments, smiling
with dislike. I was tempted to slam the door in his face.

"Mr. Norris would do better to see me,” said Schmidt, after
a pause, in an offhand, casual tone, as though this were his
first mention of the subject. I put the side of my foot as un-
ostentatiously as possible against the door, in case he should
suddenly turn rough.

"I think,” I said gently, "that that’s a matter for Mr. Norris
himself to judge.”

"Won’t you tell him I’m here?” Schmidt glanced down at
my foot and impudently grinned. Our voices were so mild
and low-pitched that anybody passing up the staircase would
have supposed us to be two neighbours, engaged in a friendly
chat.

"I’ve told you once already that Mr. Norris isn't at home.
Don’t you understand German?”

Schmidt’s smile was extraordinarily insulting. His half-
closed eyes regarded me with a certain amusement, a

120

qualified disapproval, as though I were a picture badly out
of drawing. He spoke slowly, with elaborate patience.

‘‘Perhaps it wouldn’t be troubling you too much to give
Mr. Norris a message from me?”

“Yes. ril do that.”

“Will you be so kind as to tell Mr. Norris that 111 wait an-
other three days, but no longer? You understand? At the end
of this week, if I haven’t heard from him, I shall do what I
said in my letter. He’ll know what I mean. He thinks I daren’t,
perhaps. Well, he’ll soon find out what a mistake he’s made.
I don’t want trouble, unless he asks for it. But I’ve got to live
. . . I’ve got to look after myself the same as he has. I mean
to have my rights. He needn’t think he can keep me down in
the gutter. . . .”

He was actually trembling all over. Some violent emotion,
rage or extreme weakness, was shaking his body like a leaf.
I thought for a moment that he would fall.

“Are you ill?” I asked.

My question had an extraordinary effect on Schmidt. His
oily, smiling sneer stiffened into a tense mask of hatred. He
had utterly lost control of himself. Coming a step nearer to
me, he literally shouted in my face:

“It isn’t any business of yours, do you hear? Just you tell
Norris what I said. If he doesn’t do what I want, I’ll make
him sorry for the day he was bom! And you too, you swine!”

His hysterical fury infected me suddenly. Stepping back,
I flung the door to with a violent slam, hoping to catch his
thrust-forward, screaming face on the point of the jaw. But
there was no impact. His voice stopped like a gramophone
from which the needle is lifted. Nor did he utter another
sound. As I stood there behind the closed door, my heart
pounding with anger, I heard his light footsteps cross the
landing and begin to descend the stairs.

121

CHAPTER TWELVE

An hour later, Arthur returned home, I followed him into
his room to break the news.

“Schmidt s been here.’*

If Arthur’s wig had been suddenly jerked from his head by
a fisherman, he could hardly have looked more startled.

“William, please tell me the worst at once. Don’t keep me
in suspense. What time was this? Did you see him yourself?
What did he say?”

“He’s trying to blackmail you, isn’t he?”

Arthur looked at me quickly.

“Did he admit that?”

“He as good as told me. He says he’s written to you already,
and that if you don’t do what he wants by the end of the
week there’ll be trouble.”

“He actually said that? Oh dear. . , ”

“You should have told me he’d written,” I said reproach-
fully.

“I know, dear boy, I know. . . .” Arthur was the picture
of distress, “It’s been on the tip of my tongue several times
this last fortnight. But I didn’t want to worry you unneces-
sarily. I kept hoping that, somehow, it might all blow over.”

“Now, look here, Arthxu*; the point is this: does Schmidt
really know anything about you which can do you harm?”

He had been nervously pacing the room, and now sank, a
disconsolate shirt-sleeved figure, into a chair, forlornly re-
garding his button-boots.

“Yes, William.” His voice was small and apologetic. “I’m
afraid he does.”

‘What sort of things does he know?”

122

“Really, I ... I don’t think, even for you, that I can go
into the details of my hideous past.”

“I don’t want details. What I want to know is, could
Schmidt get you involved in any land of criminal charge?”

Arthur considered this for some moments, thoughtfully
rubbing his chin.

“I don’t think he dare try it. No.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “He seemed to me to be in a
pretty bad way. Desperate enough for anytliing. He looked
as though he wasn’t getting much to eat.”

Arthur stood up again and began walking about the room,
rapidly, with small anxious steps.

“Let’s keep quite calm, William. Let’s think this out to-
gether quietly.”

“Do you think, from your experience of Schmidt, that he’d
keep quiet if you paid him a lump sum down to leave you
alone?”

Arthur did not hesitate:

“I’m quite sure he wouldn’t. It would merely whet his
appetite for my blood. ... Oh dear, oh dear!”

“Suppose you left Germany altogether? Would he be able
to get at you then?”

Arthur stopped short in the middle of a gesture of extreme
agitation.

“No, I suppose . . . that is, no, quite definitely not.” He
regarded me with dismay. “You aren’t suggesting I should
do that, I hope?”

“It seems drastic. But what’s the alternative?”

“I see none. Certainly.”

“Neither do 1.”

Arthur moved his shoulders in a shrug of despair.

“Yes, yes, my dear boy. It’s easy enough to say that. But
where’s the money coming from?”

“I thought you were pretty well oS now?” I pretended mild
surprise. Artliur’s glance slid away, evasively, from beneath
my own.

“Only under certain conditions.”

123

“You mean, you can only earn money here?”

“Well, chiefly . . He didn’t like this catechism, and be-
gan to fidget. I could no longer resist trying a shot in the
dark.

“But you get paid from Paris?”

I had scored a bull. Arthur s dishonest blue eyes showed
a startled flicker, but no more. Perhaps he wasn’t altogether
unprepared for the question.

“My dear William, I haven’t the least idea what you’re
talking about.”

I grinned.

“Never mind, Arthur. It’s no business of mine. I only want
to help you, if I can.”

“It’s most kind of you, dear boy. I’m sure.” Arthur sighed.
“This is all most diificult; most complicated. . .

“Well, we’ve got one point clear, at any rate. . . . Now,
the best thing you can do is to send Schmidt some money at
once, to keep him quiet. How much did he ask for?”

“A hundred down,” said Arthur in a subdued voice, “and
then fifty a week.”

“I must say he’s got a nerve. Could you manage a hundred
and fifty, do you think?”

“At a pinch, I suppose, yes. It goes against the grain.”

“I know. But this’ll save you ten times as much in the end.
Now what I suggest is, you send him the hundred and fifty,
with a letter promising him the balance on the first of Jan-
uary. . , .”

“Really, William . .

"Wait a minute. And meanwhile, you’ll arrange to be out
of Germany before the end of December. That gives you
three weeli’ grace. If you pay up meekly now, he won’t
bother you agaiu tiU then. He’U think he’s got you in his
pocket.

“Yes. I suppose you’re right. I shall have to accustom my-
self to the idea. AH this is so sudden.” Arthur had a mo-
mentary flare-up of resentment. “That odious serpent! If

124

ever I find an opportunity of dealing with him once for
all . .

“Don’t you worry. He’ll come to a sticky end sooner or
later. The chief problem, at present, is to raise this money
for your journey. I suppose there isn’t anybody you could
borrow it from?”

But Arthur was already following another train of thought.

“I shall find a way out of this somehow.” His tone was con-
siderably brighter. “Just let me have time to think.”

While Arthur was thinking, a week went by. The weather
didn’t improve. These dismal short days affected all our
spirits. Frl. Schroeder complained of pains in the back. Ar-
thur had a touch of liver. My pupils were unpunctual and
stupid. I was depressed and cross. I began to hate our dingy
flat, the shabby, staring house-front opposite my window, the
damp street, the stu^, noisy restaurant where we ate an
economical supper, the burnt meat, the eternal sauerkraut,
the soup.

“My GodI” I exclaimed one evening to Arthur, “what
wouldn’t I give to get out of this hole of a town for a day or
two!”

Arthur, who had been picking his teeth in melancholy
abstraction, looked at me thoughtfully. Rather to my surprise
he seemed prepared to take a sympathetic interest in my
grumbling.

“I must say, William, I’d noticed myself that you weren’t
in your accustomed sprightly vein. You’re looking distinctly
pale, you know.”

“Am ir

“I fear you’ve been overworking yourself lately. You don’t
get out of doors enough. A young man like you needs exercise
and fresh air.”

I smiled, amused and slightly mystified.

“You know, Arthur, you’re getting quite the bedside man-
ner ”

“My dear boy” — ^he pretended to be mildly hurt— “I’m

125

sorry that you mock my genuine concern for your health.
After all, I m old enough to be your father. I think I may be
excused for sometimes feeling myself in loco parentis!*

‘1 beg your pardon, Daddy.”

Arthur smiled, but with a certain exasperation. I wasn’t
giving the right answers. He couldn’t find an opening for
the topic, whatever it was, which he was thus obscurely try-
ing to broach. After a moment’s hesitation, he tried again.

‘'Tell me, William, have you ever, in the course of your
travels, visited Switzerland?”

“For my sins. I once spent three months trying to learn
French at a pension in Geneva.”

“Ah yes, I believe you told me.” Arthur coughed uneasily.
“But I was thinking more of the winter sports.”

“No. I’ve been spared those.”

Arthur appeared positively shocked.

“Really, my dear boy, if you don’t mind my saying so, I
think you carry your disdain of athleticism too far, I do in-
deed. Far be it from me to disparage the things of the mind.
But, remember, you’re still young. I hate to see you depriving
yourself of pleasures which you won’t, in any case, be able
to indulge in later. Be quite frank; isn’t it aU rather a pose?”

I grinned.

“May I ask, with all due respect, what branch of sport you
indulged in yourself at the age of twenty-eight?”

“Well — er — as you know, I have always suffered from
delicate health. Our cases are not at all the same. Neverthe-
less, I may tell you that, during one of my visits to Scotland,
I became quite an ardent fisherman. In fact, I frequently
succeeded in catching those small fish with pretty red and
brown markings. Their name escapes me for the moment.”

I laughed and lit a cigarette.

“And now, Arthur, having given such an admirable per-
formance as the fond parent, suppose you tell me what you’re
driving at?”

He sighed, with resignation, with exasperation; partly,
perhaps, with relief. He was excused from further sham-

126

ming. When he spoke again, it was with a complete change
of tone.

“After all, William, I don't know why I should beat about
the bush. WeVe known each other long enough now. How
long is it, by the way, since we first met?”

“More than two years.”

“Is it? Is it indeed? Let me see. Yes, you're right. As I was
saying, we've known each other long enough now for me to
be able to appreciate the fact that, although young in years,
you're already a man of the world. . .

“You put it charmingly.”

“I assure you, I'm qxiite serious. Now, what I have to say
is simply this (and please don't regard it as anything but
the very vaguest possibihty, because, quite apart from the
question of your consent, a very vital question, I know, the
whole thing would have to be approved by a third party, who
doesn't, at present, know anything about the scheme) . . .”

Arthur paused, at the end of this parenthesis, to draw
breath, and to overcome his constitutional dislike of laying
his cards on the table.

“What I now merely ask you is this: would you, or would
you not, be prepared to spend a few days in Switzerland
this Christmas, at one or other of the winter sport resorts?”

Having got it out at last, he was covered in confusion,
avoided my eye and began fiddling nerv^ously with the cruet-
stand. The neural effort required to make this offer appeared
to have been considerable. I stared at him for a moment;
then burst out laughing in my amazement.

“Well, I'm damned! So that was what you were after, all
the time!”

Arthur joined, rather shyly, in my mirth. He was watching
my face, shrewdly and covertly, in its various phases of
astonishment. At what he evidently considered to be the
psychological moment, he added:

“All expenses would be paid, of course.”

“But what on earth ...” I began.

“Never mind, William. Never mind. It's just an idea of

127

mine, that’s all. It mayn’t, it very likely won’t, come to any-
thing. Please don’t ask me any more now. All I want to
know is: would you be prepared to contemplate such a thing
at all, or is it out of the question?”

"Nothing’s out of the question, of course. But there are
all sorts of things I should want to know. For instance . . .”

Arthur held up a delicate white hand.

"Not now, William, I beg.”

"Just this: What should I . .

"I can’t discuss anything now,” interrupted Arthur, firmly.
"I simply must not.”

And, as if afraid that he would nevertheless be tempted to
do so, he called to the waiter for our bills.

The best part of another week passed without Arthur
having made any further allusion to the mysterious Swiss
project. With considerable self-control, I refrained from re-
minding him of it; perhaps, like so many of his other brilliant
schemes, it was already forgotten. And there were more im-
portant things to be thought of. Christmas was upon us, the
year would soon be over; yet he hadn’t, so far as I knew, the
ghost of a prospect of raising the money for his escape. When
I asked him about it, he was vague. When I urged him to
take steps, evasive. He seemed to be getting into a dangerous
state of inertia. Evidently he underrated Schmidt’s vindic-
tiveness and power to harm. I did not. I couldn’t so easily
forget my last unpleasant glimpse of the secretary’s face. Ar-
thur’s indifference drove me sometimes nearly frantic.

"Don’t worry, dear boy,” he would murmur vaguely, with
abstracted, butterfly fingerings of his superb wig. "Sufficient
unto tlie day, you know . . . Yes.”

"A day will come,” I retorted, "when it’ll be sufficient unto
two or three years’ hard.”

Next morning, something happened to confirm my fears.

I was sitting in Arthur’s room, assisting, as usual, at the
ceremonies of the toilet, when the telephone bell rang.

"Will you be kind enough to see who it is, dear boy?” said

128

Arthur, powder-puff in hand. He never personally answered
a call if it could be avoided. I picked up the receiver.

“It’s Schmidt,” I announced, a moment later, not without
a certain gloomy satisfaction, covering the mouthpiece with
my hand.

“Oh dear!” Arthur could hardly have been more flustered
if his persecutor had actually been standing outside the
bedroom door. Indeed, his harassed glance literally swept
for an instant under the bed, as though measuring the avail-
able space for hiding there:

“Tell him anything. Say I’m not at home. . ,

“I think,” I said firmly, “that it’d be much better if you
were to speak to him yourself. After all, he can’t bite you.
He may give you some idea of what he means to do.”

“Oh, very well, if you insist. . . Arthur was quite petu-
lant. “I must say, I should have thought it was very unneces-
sary.”

Gingerly, holding the powder-puff like a defensive weapon,
he advanced to the instrument.

“Yes. Yes.” The dimple in his chin jerked sideways. He
snarled like a nervous Hon. “No ... no, really. . . . But do

please Hsten one moment ... I can’t, I assure you ... I
^ > 1 . »

cant. . . .

His voice trailed off into a protesting, imploring whisper.
He wobbled the hook of the receiver in futile distress.

“WiUiam, he’s rung off.”

Arthur’s dismay was so comic that I had to smile.

“What did he tell you?”

Arthur crossed the room and sat down heavily on the bed.
He seemed quite exhausted. The powder-pxiff fell to the
floor from between his limp fingers.

“I’m reminded of the deaf adder, who heareth not the voice
of the charmer . . . What a monster, William! May your
life never be burdened by such a fiend. . . ”

“Do tell me what he said.”

“He confined himself to threats, dear boy. Mostly inco-
herent, He wanted merely to remind me of his existence, I

129

think. And that hell need some more money soon. It was
very cruel of you to make me speak to him. Now I shall be
upset for the rest of the day. Just feel my hand; it"s shaking
like a leaf.”

‘‘But, Arthur.” I picked up the powder-puflE and put it on
the dressing-table. “It s no good just being upset. This must
be a warning to you. You see, he really does mean business.
We must do something about it. Haven't you any plan? Are
there no steps you can take?”

Arthur roused himself with an effort.

“Yes, yes. Youre right, of course. The die is cast. Steps
shall be taken. In fact, not a moment shall be lost. I wonder
if you'd be so good as to get me the Fernamt on the telephone
and say I wish to put tlirough a call to Paris? I don't think
it's too early? No. . . .”

I asked for the number Arthur gave me and tactfully left
him alone. I didn't see him again until the evening, when,
as usual, we met by appointment at the restaurant for our
supper. I noticed at once that he was brighter. He even in-
sisted that we should drink wine, and when I demurred
offered to pay my share of the bottle.

“It’s so strengthening,” he added persuasively.

I grinned. “Still worried about my health?”

“You're very unkind,” said Arthur, smiling. But he refused
to be drawn. When, a minute or two later, I asked pointblank
how things were going, he replied:

“Let's have supper first, dear boy. Be patient with me,
please.”

But even when supper was over and we had both ordered
coffee (an additional extravagance), Arthur seemed in no
hurry to give me his news. Instead, he appeared anxious to
know what I had been doing, which pupils I had had, where
I had lunched, and so forth.

“You haven't seen our friend Pregnitz lately, I think?”

“As a matter of fact. I'm going to tea with him to-morrow.”

“Are you, indeed?”

I restrained a smile. I was familiar enough by this time

130

with Arthur s methods of approach. That new intonation in
his voice, though suavely concealed, hadn’t escaped me. So
we were coming to the point at last.

“May I give him any message?”

Arthur s face was a comical study. We regarded each other
with the amusement of two people who, night after night,
cheat each other at a card game which is not played for
money. Simultaneously we began to laugh.

“What, exactly,” I asked, “do you want to get out of him?”

“Williarn, please . . . you put things so very crudely.”

“It saves time.”

“Yes, yes. You’re right. Time is, alas, important just now.
Very well, let’s put it that I’m anxious to do a little business
with him. Or shall we say to put him in the way of doing it
for himself?”

“How very kind of youl”

Arthur tittered. “I am kind, aren’t I, William? That’s wliat
so few people seem to realize.”

“And what is this business? When is it coming off?”

“That remains to be seen, I hope.”

“I suppose you get a percentage?”

“Naturally,”

“A big percentage?”

“If it succeeds. Yes.”

“Enough for you to be able to leave Germany?”

“Oh, more than enough. Quite a nice little nest-egg, in
fact.”

“Then that’s splendid, isn’t it?”

Arthur snarled nervously, regarded his finger-nails with
extreme care.

“Unfortunately, there are certain technical difficulties. I
need, as so often, your valuable advice.”

“Very well, let’s hear them.”

Arthur considered for some moments. I could see that he
was wondering how much he need tell me.

“Chiefly,” he said at length, “that this business cannot be
transacted in Germany ”

131

“Why not?*’

“Because it would involve too much publicity. The other
party to the deal is a well-known business man. As you
probably know, big-business circles are comparatively small.
They all w^atch each other. News gets round in a moment;
the least hint is enough. If this man were to come to Ber-
lin, the business people here would know about it before he’d
even arrived. And secrecy is absolutely essential.”

“It all sounds very tihirilling. But I’d no idea that Kuno
was in business at all.”

“Strictly speaking, he isn’t.” Arthur took some trouble to
avoid my eye. “This is merely a side-line.”

“I see. And where do you propose that this meeting shall
take place?”

Arthur carefully selected a tooth-pick from the Httle bowl
in front of him.

“That, my dear William, is where I hope to have the benefit
of your valuable advice. It must be somewhere, of course,
widiin easy reach of the German frontier. Somewhere where
people can go, at this time of the year, without attracting
attention, on a holiday.”

With great deliberation, Arthur broke the tooth-pick into
two pieces and laid them side by side on the table-cloth.
Without looking up at me, he added:

“Subject to your approval. I’d rather thought of Switzer-
land.”

There was quite a long pause. We were both smiHng.

“So that’s it?” I said at last.

Arthur redivided the tooth-pick into quarters; raised his
eyes to mine in a glance of dishonest, smiling innocence,

“That, as you rightly observe, dear boy, is it.”

“Well, well. What a foxy old thing you are.” I laughed.
“I’m beginning to see daylight at last.”

“I must comess, William, I was beginning to find you a
little slow in the uptake. That isn’t like you, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur. But all these riddles make me a bit

132

giddy. Suppose you stop asking ttem and lets have the
whole yam from the beginning?”

“I assure you, my dear boy, Im more than ready to tell
you all I know about this affair, which isn’t very much. Well,
to cut a long story short, Pregnitz is interested in one of the
largest glass-works in Germany. It doesn’t matter which. You
wouldn’t find his name on the list of directors; nevertheless,
he has a great deal of unojSBcial influence. Of course, I don’t
pretend to understand these matters myself.”

“A glass-works? Well, that sounds harmless enough.”

“But, my dear boy,” Arthur was anxiously reassuring, “of
course it’s harmless. You mustn’t aUow your naturally cau-
tious nature to upset your sense of proportion. If this proposi-
tion sounds a little odd to you at first, it’s only because you
aren’t accustomed to the ways of high finance. Why, it’s the
kind of thing which takes place every day. Ask anybody
you like. The largest deals are almost always discussed in-
formally.”

“All right! AU right! Go on.”

“Let me see. Where was I? Ah, yes. Now, one of my most
intimate friends in Paris is a certain prominent financier —

“Who signs himself Margot?”

But this time I didn’t catch Arthur off his guard. I couldn’t
even guess whether he was s
smiled.

“How sharp you are, William! Well, perhaps he does. Any-
how, we’ll call him Margot for convenience. Yes ... at ^
events, Margot is exceedingly anxious to have a chance of
meeting Pregnitz. Although he doesn’t admit it in so many
words, I understand that he wishes to propose some sort of
combine between Pregnitz’s firm and his own. But that’s
entirely unoflScial; it doesn’t concern us. As for Pregnitz,
he’ll have to hear Margot’s propositions for himself and de-
cide whether they’re to the advantage of his firm or not
Quite possibly, indeed probably, they will be. If not, there’s
no harm done, Margot will only have himself to blame. All

133

urprised or not. He merely

he’s asking me to arrange is that he meets the Baron socially,
on neutral ground, where they won’t be bothered by a lot of
financial reporters and can talk things over quietly.”

‘‘And as soon as you’ve brought them together, you get the
cash?”

“When the meeting has taken place,” Arthur lowered his
voice, “I get half. The other half will be paid only if the deal
is successful. But the worst of it is, Margot insists that he
must see Pregnitz at once. He’s always like that when once
he gets an idea into his head. A most impatient -man. . . .”

“And he’s really prepared to give you such a lot simply
for arranging this meeting?”

“Remember, William, it seems a mere bagatelle to him. If
this transaction is successful, he’ll probably make millions.”

“Well, all I can say is, I congratulate you. It ought to be
easy enough to earn.”

“I’m glad you think so, my dear boy.” Arthur’s tone was
guarded and doubtful.

“Why, where’s the difficulty? AH you have to do is to go
to Kuno and explain the whole situation.”

“William!” Arthur seemed positively horror-stricken. “That
would be fatal!”

“I don’t see why.”

“You don’t see why? Really, dear boy, I must own I
credited you with more finesse. No, that’s entirely out of
the question. You don’t know Pregnitz as I do. He’s extraor-
dinarily sensitive in these matters, as I’ve discovered to my
cost. He’d regard it as an unwarrantable intrusion into his
affairs. He’d withdraw at once. He has the true aristocratic
outlook, which one so seldom finds in these money-grubbing
days. I admit I admire him for it.”

I grinned.

“He seems to be a very peculiar sort of business man, if
he’s offended when you offer him a fortune.”

But Arthur was quite heated.

“William, please, this is no time to be frivolous. Surely you
must see my point. Pregnitz refuses, and I, for one, entirely

134

agree with him, to mix personal with business relationships.
Coming from you or from me, any suggestion that he should
enter into negotiations with Margot, or with anybody else,
would be an impertinence. And he’d resent it as such. There-
fore, I do beg of you, don’t breathe one word about this to
him, on any account.”

“No, of course I won’t. Don’t get excited. But look here,
Arthur, do 1 understand you to mean that Kuno is to go to
Switzerland without knowing that he’s there to meet Mar-
got?”

“You put it in a nutshell.”

“H’m . . . That certainly complicates things, rather. All
the same, I don’t see why you should have any special dif-
ficulty. Kuno probably goes to the winter sports, anyhow.
It’s quite in his line. What I don’t altogether follow is, where
do I come in? Am I to be brought along simply to swell the
crowd, or to provide comic relief, or what?”

Arthur chose and divided another tooth-pick.

“I was just coming to that point, William.” His tone was
carefully impersonal. “I’m afraid, you see, you’d have to go
alone.”

“Alone with Kuno?”

“Yes.” Arthur began speaking with nervous rapidity.
“There are a number of reasons which make it quite impos-
sible for me to come with you, or to deal with this matter
myself. In the first place, it would be exceedingly awkward,
having once left this country, to return to it, as I should be
obliged to do, even if only for a few days. Secondly, this sug-
gestion, that we should go together to the winter sports, com-
ing from me, would sound very odd. Pregnitz knows perfectly
well that I haven’t the constitution or the taste for such things.
Coming from you, on the other hand, what could be more
natural? He’d probably be only too delighted to travel with
such a young and lively companion.”

“Yes, I quite see all that . . . but how should I get into
touch with Margot? I don’t even know him by sight”

Axthxir dismissed these difficulties with a wave of the hand*

135

“Leave that to me, dear boy, and to him. Set your mind at
rest, forget everything Tve told you this evening, and enjoy
yourself.”

“Nothing but that?”

“Nothing. Once youVe got Pregnitz across the frontier
your duties are at an end.”

“It sounds delightful.”

Arthur’s face lit up at once.

“Then you’ll go?”

“I must think it over.”

Disappointed, he squeezed his chin. The tooth-picks were
divided into eighths. At the end of a long minute he said
hesitantly:

“Quite apart from your expenses, which, as I think I told
you, will be paid in advance, I should ask you to accept a
Uttle something, you know, for your trouble.”

“No, thank you, Arthur.”

“I beg your pardon, William.” He sounded much relieved.
“I might have known you wouldn’t.”

I grinned.

“I won’t deprive you of your honest earnings.”

Watching my face carefully, he smiled. He was uncertain
how to take me. His manner changed.

“Of course, dear boy, you must do as you think best. I
don’t want to influence you in any way. If you decide against
this scheme, I shan’t allude to it again. At the same time,
you know what it means to me. It’s my only chance. I hate
begging for favours. Perhaps I’m asking too much of you. I
can only say that if you do this for me I shall be eternally
grateful. And if it’s ever in my power to repay you . .

“Stop, Arthur. Stop! You’ll make me cry.” I laughed. “Very
well. I’ll do my best with Kuno. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t
build your hopes on it. I don’t suppose for a minute he’ll
come. Probably he’s engaged already.”

On this understanding, the subject was closed for the
evening.

136

Next day, when I returned from the tea-party at Kuno s
flat, I found Arthur waiting for me in his bedroom in a state
of the most extreme anxiety. He could hardly wait to shut the
door before hearing my news.

"Quick, William, please. Tell me the worst. I can bear it
He won't come? No?"

"Yes,” I said. “He'll come.”

For a moment, joy seemed to have made Arthur quite
speechless, incapable of motion. Then a spasm passed over
all his limbs; he executed a kind of caper in the air.

"My dear boyl I must, I really must embrace you!” And
he literally threw his arms round my neck and kissed me, like
a French general, on both cheeks. “Tell me all about it. Did
you have much diflSculty? What did he say?”

"Oh, he more or less suggested the whole thing himself
before I had opened my mouth. He wanted to go to the
Riesengebirge, but I pointed out that the snow would be
much better in the Alps.”

"You did? That was brilliant of you, William! Positively
inspired. . .

I sat down in a chair. Arthur fluttered round me, admiring
and delighted.

"You're quite sure he hasn't the least suspicion?”

“Perfectly sure.”

"And how soon shall you be able to start?”

"On Christmas Eve, I think.”

Arthur regarded me solicitously.

"You don't sound very enthusiastic, dear boy. I'd hoped
this would be a pleasure to you, too. You're not feeling ill,
by any chance, I trust?”

“Not in the least, thank you.” I stood up. “Arthur, I'm going
to ask you something.”

His eyelids fluttered nervously at my tone.

“Why— er — of course. Ask away, dear boy. Ask away.”

"I want you to speak the truth. Are you and Margot going
to swindle Kuno? Yes or no?”

137

‘"My dear William — er — really ... I think you pre-
sume . .

‘1 want an answer, please, Arthur. You see, it’s important
for me to know. Tm mixed up in this now. Are you or aren’t
you?”

“Well, I must say . . . No. Of course not. As I’ve already
explained at some length, I . .

“Do you swear that?”

“Really, William, this isn't a court of law. Don’t look at me
like that, please. All right, if it gives you any satisfaction, I
swear it.”

“Thank you. That’s all I wanted. I’m sorry if I sounded
rude. You know that, as a rule, I don’t meddle in your aflEairs.
Only this is my affair too, you see.”

Arthur smiled weakly, rather shaken.

“I quite understand your anxiety, dear boy, of course. But
in this case, I do assure you, it’s entirely unfounded. I’ve
every reason to believe that Pregnitz will reap great benefits
from this transaction, if he’s wise enough to accept it.”

As a final test, I tried to look Arthur in the eyes. But no,
this time-honoured process didn’t work. Here were no win-
dows to the soul. They were merely part of his face, light-
blue jellies, like naked shell-fish in the crevices of a rock.
There was nothmg to hold the attention; no sparkle, no
inward gleam. Try as I would, my glance wandered away
to more interesting features; the soft, snout-hke nose, the
concertina chin. After three or four attempts, I gave it up.
It was no good. There was nothing for it but to take Arthur
at his word.

138

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My jotoney with Kuno to Switzerland resembled the honey-
moon trip which follows a marriage of convenience. We
were polite, mutually considerate and rather shy. Kuno was
a model of discreet attentiveness. With his own hands, he ar-
ranged my luggage in the rack, ran out at the last moment
to buy me magazines, discovered by roundabout inquiries
that I preferred the upper sleeping-car berth to the lower,
and retired into the corridor to wait until I was undressed.
When I got tired of reading, there he was, affable and in-
formative, waiting to tell me the names of the mountains. We
chatted with great animation in five-minute spasms, re-
lapsing into sudden, abstracted silence. Both of us had plenty
to think about. Kuno, I suppose, was worrying over the
sinister manoeuvres of German politics or dreaming about
his island of the seven boys: I had leisure to review the
Margot conundrum in all its aspects. Did he really exist?
Well, there above my head was a brand-new pigskin suit-
case containing a dinner-jacket delivered from the tailor
only the day before. Arthur had been positively lordly with
our employer's money. “Get whatever you want, dear boy. It
would never do for you to be shabby. Besides, what a
chance . . After some hesitation, I had doubtfully fol-
lowed his advice, though not to the reckless extent which he
urged. Arthur even went so far in his interpretation of
“travelling expenses" as to press upon me a set of gold cuff-
links, a wrist-watch, and a fountain-pen. “After all, William,
business is business. You don't know these people as I do."
His tone, when speaking of Margot, had become remarkably

139

bitter: "If you asked him to do anything for you he wouldn’t
hesitate to squeeze you to the last penny.”

On Boxing Day, our first morning, I awoke to the tinny
jingle of sleigh-bells from the snowy street below, and a
curious clicking noise, also metallic, which proceeded from
the bathroom. Through the half -open door Kuno was to be
seen, in a pair of gym shorts, doing exercises with a chest-
expander. He was straining himself terribly; the veins in
his neck bulged and his nostrils arched and stiffened with
each desperate effort. He was obviously unaware, that he was
not alone. His eyes, bare of the monocle, were fixed in a
short-sighted, visionary stare which suggested that he was
engaged in a private religious rite. To speak to him would
have been as intrusive as to disturb a man at his prayers. I
turned over in bed and pretended to be asleep. After a few
moments, I heard the bathroom door softly close.

Our rooms were on the first floor of the hotel, looking out
over the houses of the village scattered along the frozen lake
to the sparkling ski-ing slopes, massive and smooth as the
contours of an immense body under blankets, crossed by the
black spider-line of the funicular which climbed to the start
of the toboggan runs. It seemed a curious background for
an international business transaction. But, as Arthur had
rightly said, I knew nothing of the ways of financiers. I got
dressed slowly, thinking about my invisible host. Was Mar-
got here already? The hotel was fuU up, the manager had told
us. To judge from my glimpse of the guests, last night, in the
huge dining-room, there must be several hundred of them
staying here.

Kuno joined me for breakfast. He was dressed, with
scrupulous informality, in grey flannel trousers, a blazer and
the knotted silk scarf of his Oxford college colours.

“You slept well, I hope?”

‘‘Very well, thank you. And you?”

“I, not so well.” He smiled, flushed, slightly abashed. “It
doesn’t matter. In the night-time I had something to read,
you see?”

140

Bashfully he let me see the title of the book he was holding
in his hand. It was called Billy the Castaway.

"Is it good?” I asked.

"There is one chapter which is very nice, I find . . ”

Before I could hear the contents of the nice chapter, how-
ever, a waiter appeared with our breakfast on a little wheeled
car. We reverted at once to our self-conscious honeymoon
manners.

"May I give you some cream?”

"Just a little, please.”

"Is this how you like it?”

"Thank you, that’s delicious.”

Our voices sounded so absurd that I could have laughed
out loud. We were hke two unimportant characters in the
first act of a play, put there to make conversation until it is
time for the chief actor to appear.

By the time we had finished breakfast, the immense white
slopes were infested aheady with tiny figures, some skim-
ming and criss-crossing hke dragon-flies, some faltering and
collapsing hke injured ants. The skaters were out in dozens
on the lake. Within a roped enclosure, an inhumanly agile
creature in black tights performed wonders before an atten-
tive audience. Knapsacked, helmeted and booted, some of
the more active guests were starting out on long, dangerous
tours of the upper heights, hke soldiers from a luxury bar-
racks. And here and there, amidst the great army, the
wounded were to be seen, limping on sticks or with their
arms in shngs, taking a painful convalescent promenade.

Attentive as ever, Kuno took it for granted that he was to
teach me to ski. I should have much preferred to mess about
alone, but my attempts at pohte dissuasion were in vain. He
regarded it as his duty; there was no more to be said. So we
spent two perspiring hours on the beginners’ slope; I sheer-
ing and stumbling, Kuno admonishing and supporting. “No,
excuse me, this is again not quite correct . . . you hold your-
self in too stiff a manner, you see?” His patience seemed inex-
haustible. I longed for lunch.

141

About the middle of the morning, a young man came
circling expertly among the novices in our neighbourhood.
He stopped to watch us; perhaps my awkwardness amused
him. His presence rather annoyed me; I didn’t want an
audience. Half by accident, half by design, I made a sud-
den swerve at him when he least expected it and knocked him
clean ofiE his feet. Our mutual apologies were profuse. He
helped me to get up and even brushed some of the snow off
me with his hand.

“Allow me . . . van Hoorn.”

His bow, skis and all, was so marvellously stiff that he
might have been challenging me to a duel,

“Bradshaw , . . very pleased.”

I tried to parody it and promptly fell forward on my face,
to be raised this time by Kuno himself. Somewhat less for-
mally, I introduced them.

After this, to my relief, Kuno’s interest in my instruction
considerably decreased. Van Hoorn was a tall, fair boy, hand-
some in the severe Viking manner, though he had rather
spoilt his appearance by shaving off most of his hair. The bald
back of his head was sunburnt to an angry scarlet. He had
studied for three semesters, he told us, at the University
of Hamburg. He was furiously shy and blushed crimson
whenever Kuno, with his discreedy flattering smile, ad-
dressed him.

Van Hoorn could do a turn which interested Kuno ex-
tremely. They went off for some distance to demonstrate and
practise it. Presently, it was time for lunch. On our way down
to the hotel, the young man introduced us to his uncle, a
lively, plump little Dutchman, who was cutting figures on
the ice with great skill. The elder Mr. van Hoorn was a con-
trast to his grave nephew. His eyes twinkled merrily, he
seemed delighted to make our acquaintance. His face was
brown as an old boot and he was quite bald. He wore side-
whiskers and a little pointed beard.

“So you ve made some friends already?” He addressed his
nephew in German. “That’s right.” His twinkling eyes re-

142

garded Kuno and myself. ‘1 tell Piet he should get to know
a nice girl, but he won t; he s too shy. I wasn't like that at his
age, I can tell you.”

Piet van Hoorn blushed, frowned and looked away, re-
fusing to respond to Kuno s discreet glance of sympathy. Mr.
van Hoorn chattered away to me as he removed his skates.

“So you like it here? My word, so do I! I haven't enjoyed
myself so much for years. I bet IVe lost a pound or two al-
ready. Why, I don't feel a day over twenty-one, this
morning.” .

As we entered the dining-room, Kuno suggested that the
van Hoorns should come and sit at our table; he gave a
meaning glance at Piet as he spoke. I felt rather embarrassed.
Kuno was certainly a bit crude in his advances. But Mr. van
Hoorn agreed at once, most heartily. He appeared to find
nothing odd in the proposal. Probably he was glad enough
to have some extra people to talk to.

During lunch, Kuno devoted himself almost entirely to
Piet. He seemed to have succeeded in thawing the ice a
little, for, several times, the boy laughed. Van Hoorn, mean-
while, was pouring into my ear a succession of the oldest and
most childish smoking-room stories. He related them with
extraordinary gusto and enjoyment. I scarcely listened. The
warmth of the dining-room made me sleepy, after the sharp
air outside; behind palms, tlie band played dreamy music.
The food was delicious; seldom had I eaten such a lunch.
And, all the time, I was vaguely wondering where Margot
was, when and how he w^ould appear.

Into my coma intruded, with increasing frequency, a few
sentences of French. I could understand only a word here
and there: “interesting,” “suggestive,” “extremely typical.” It
was the speaker s voice which caught my attention. It pro-
ceeded from the table next to our own. Idly I turned my head.

A large, middle-aged man sat facing an exoticaDy pretty
blonde girl of the type which Paris alone produces. Both of
them were looking in our direction and speaking in carefully
restrained tones, ob\dousIy about us. The man seemed par-

143

ticulary interested. He had a bald, egg-shaped head; bold,
rudely prominent, round, solemn eyes; yellowish- white hair
brushed back round the base of the skull like a pair of folded
wings. His voice was vibrant and harsh. About his whole ap-
pearance there was something indescribably unpleasant and
sinister. I felt a curious thrill pass through my nervous sys-
tem; antagonistic, apprehensive, expectant. I glanced quickly
at the others; but no, they seemed entirely unaware of the
stranger's cynical, unconcealed inspection. Kuno was bend-
ing over to speak to Piet; fishy, caressing and suave. Mr. van
Hoorn had stopped talking at last and was making up for
lost time on a grilled steak. He had tucked his napkin into
his collar and was chewing away with the abandonment of
one who need no longer fear gravy-stains on his waistcoat.
I fancied I heard our French neighbour pronounce the word
^^dego'Otant”

I had frequently pictured to myself what Margot would
look like. I had imagined him fatter, older, more prosaic.
My imagination had been altogether too timid; I hadn't
dreamed of anything so authentic, so absolutely, immediately
convincing. Nobody's intuition could be at fault here. I was
as certain of his identity as if I'd known him for years.

It was a thrilling moment. My only regret was that nobody
could share its excitement with me. How Arthur would have
enjoyed it! I could imagine his ill-concealed, gleeful agita-
tion; his private signals which everybody would observe; his
ludicrously forced attempts to cover up the mystery with
bright chat. The very thought of them made me want to
laugh out loud. I didn't dare risk another glance at our
neighbours, lest they should see from my face what I knew.
Long ago, I had made up my mind that never, at any stage
in the proceedings, would I betray my complicity by so much
as the flicker of an eyelid. Margot had kept his part of the
bargain; I would show him that I, also, could be trustworthy
and discreet.

How would he deliver his attack? This was a really fas-
cinating question. I tried to put myself in his position; began

!44

to imagine the most extravagant subtleties. Perhaps he, or
the girl, would pick Kudos pocket and introduce themselves
later, pretending to have found his note-case on the floor.
Perhaps, that night, there would be a sham alarm of fire.
Margot would plant smoke-bombs in Kuno’s bedroom and
then rush in to rescue him from the fumes. It seemed obvious
to me that they would do something drastic. Margot didn’t
look the man to be content witli half measures. What were
they up to now? I could no longer hear their voices. Drop-
ping my napkin somewhat clumsily on the floor, I bent down
to pick it up and get a peep, only to find to my disappoint-
ment that the two of them had left the dining-room. I was
disappointed, but, on thinking it over, not particularly sur-
prised. This had been merely a reconnoitre. Margot would
probably do nothing before the evening.

After lunch, Kuno earnestly advised me to rest. As a be-
ginner, he explained, it would be most unwise for me to
exert myself too much on the first day. I agreed, not without
amusement. A few moments later, I heard him arranging
with Piet van Hoorn to go out to the toboggan runs. Mr. van
Hoorn had already retired to his room.

At tea-time, there was dancing in the lounge. Piet and
Kuno didn’t appear; neither, to my relief, did Mr. van Hoorn.
I was quite happy by myself, watching the guests. Presently,
Margot came in alone. He sat down on the opposite side of
the big glass veranda, not more than a couple of yards from
my table. Stealing a glance in his direction, I met his eyes.
They were cold, prominent, rudely inquisitive as ever. My
heart thumped uncomfortably. The situation was getting
positively uncanny. Suppose I were to go over and speak to
him now? I could save him, after all, a great deal of trouble.
I had only to introduce him as an acquaintance of mine, met
here by chance. There was no earthly reason why Kuno
should suspect anything pre-arranged. Why should we go on
performing this rather sinister charade? I hesitated, half rose
to my feet, subsided again. For the second time my eyes met
his. And now it seemed to me that I understood him per-

145

fectly. “Don’t be a little fool,” he was saying. “Leave this to
me. Don’t try to meddle in things you don’t understand.”

“All right,” I mentally told him, with a slight shrug of my
shoulders. “Do as you like. It’s your funeral.”

And, feeling rather resentful, I got up and walked out of
the lounge; I couldn’t stand this silent the-a-tete any longer.

At dinner that night both Kuno and Mr. van Hoorn, in
their different ways, were in high spirits. Piet looked bored.
Perhaps he found his evening clotiies as stiff and uncom-
fortable as I did mine. If so, he had my hearty sympathy. His
uncle rallied him from time to time on his silence, and I re-
flected how much I should dislike to travel with Mr. van
Hoorn.

We were near the end of our meal when Margot and his
companion came into the dining-room. I saw them at once,
for 1 had been subconsciously keeping my eye on the door
ever since we had sat down. Margot was wearing a tail-coat,
with a flower in his button-hole. The girl was dressed magnif-
icently, in some shimmering material which gleamed like
silver armour. They passed down the long lane between the
tables -with many eyes following them.

“Look, Piet,” exclaimed Mr. van Hoorn, “there’s a pretty
girl for you. Ask her for a dance this evening. Her father
won’t bite you.”

To reach their table, Margot had to pass within a few
inches of our chairs. As he did so, he briefly inclined his
head. Kuno, ever gracious, returned the bow. For a mo-
ment, I thought Margot would follow up this opening, even
if only with a conventional remark about the weather. He
did not. The two of them took their places. Almost immedi-
ately, we rose to go and drink our coffee in the smoking-
room.

Here, Mr. van Hoorn’s conversation took a surprising turn.
It was as if he’d realized that the heartiness and the doubtful
stories had been overdone. He began, quite suddenly, to talk
about art. He had a house, he told us, in Paris, which was full
of old furniture and etchings. Although he spoke modestly,

146

it soon became clear that he was an expert. Kuno was greatly
interested. Piet remained indifferent. I saw him cast more
than one furtive glance at his wrist-watch, presumably to
see whether it wasu t time for bed.

“Excuse me, gentlemen."'

The harsh voice startled all of us; nobody had seen Mar-
got's approach. He towered above us, an elegant, sardonic
figure, holding a cigar in his mottled, yellow hand.

“It is necessary that I ask this young man a question.”

His bulging eyes fixed upon Piet with a concentration
which suggested that he was observing some minute insect,
scarcely visible without the aid of a magnifying glass. The
poor boy literally began to sweat with embarrassment. As
for myself, I was so amazed at this new turn in Margot's
tactics that I could only stare at him, my mouth hanging
open. Margot himself evidently enjoyed the effect which his
dramatic appearance had created. His lips curved in a smile
which was positively diabolic.

“Have you the true Aryan descent?”

And before the astounded Piet could answer, he added:

“I am Marcel Janin.”

I don't know whether the others had really heard of him,
or whether their polite interest was merely pretended. As it
happened, I knew his name quite well. M. Janin was one of
Fritz Wendel's favourite authors. Fritz had once lent me a
book of his — The Kiss Under the Midnight Sun, It was writ-
ten in the fashionable French manner, half romance, half
reportage, and gave a lurid, obviously imaginative account
of the erotic life of Hammerfest. And there were half a dozen
others, equally sensational and ranging in milieu from San-
tiago to Shanghai. M. Janin's particular brand of pornog-
raphy, if one was to judge from his clothes, appeared to have
hit the public taste. He had just finished his eighth, he told
us: it dealt with the amours peculiar to a winter sport hotel.
Hence his presence here. After his brusque self-introduction,
he proved most affable and treated us, without further re-
quest, to a discourse on his career, aims and methods of work.

147

'1 write very quick,” he informed us. "For me, one glance
is suflScient. I do not believe in the second impression.”

A couple of days ashore from a cruising liner had furnished
M. Janin with the material for most of his works. And now
Switzerland was disposed of, too. Looking for fresh worlds
to conquer, he had fixed on the Nazi movement. He and his
secretary were leaving next day for Munich. "Within a
week,” he concluded ominously, “I shall know all.”

I wondered what part M. Janin’s secretary (he insisted,
several times, on this title ) played in his lightning researches.
Probably she acted as a kind of rough and ready chemical
reagent; in certain combinations she produced certain known
results. It was she, it seemed, who had discovered Piet.
M. Janin, as excited as a hunter in unfamiliar territory, had
rushed, over-precipitately, to the attack. He didn't seem
much disappointed, however, to discover that this wasn't his
legitimate prey. His generalizations, formulated, to save
time, in advance, were not easily disturbed. Dutchman or
German, it was all grist to the mill. Piet, I suspected, would
nevertheless make his appearance in the new book, dressed
up in a borrowed brown shirt. A writer with M. Janin's
technique can aflEord to waste nothing.

One mystery was solved, the other deepened. I puzzled
over it for the rest of the evening. If Margot wasn't Janin,
who was he? And where? It seemed odd that he should frit-
ter away twenty-four hours like this, after being in such a
hurry to get Kuno to come. To-morrow, I thought, he'll turn
up for certain. My meditations were interrupted by Kuno
tapping at my door to ask if I had gone to bed. He wanted
to talk about Piet van Hoorn, and, sleepy as I felt, I wasn't
unkind enough to deny him.

“Tell me, please . , . don't you find him a little like
Tony?”

“Tony?” I was stupid this evening. “Tony who?”

Kuno regarded me with gentle reproach.

“Why, excuse me ... I mean Tony in the book, you
see.”

148

I smiled.

"You think Tony is more like Piet than like Heinz?”

“Oh yes,” Kuno was very definite on this point. “Much
more like,”

So poor Heinz was banished from the island. Having re-
luctantly agreed to this, we said good-night.

Next morning I decided to make some investigations for
myself. While Kuno was in the lounge talking to the van
Hoorns, I got into conversation with the hall porter. Oh yes,
he assured me, a great many business people were here from
Paris just now; some of them veiy important.

“M. Bernstein, for instance, the factory-owner. He’s worth
millions. . . . Look, sir, he’s over there now, by the desk.”

I had just time to catch sight of a fat, dark man with an
expression on his face like that of a sulky baby. I had never
noticed him anywhere in our neighbourhood. He passed
through the doors into the smoking-room, a bundle of let-
ters in his hand.

“Do you know if he owns a glass factory?” I asked.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir. I wouldn’t be surprised. They
say he’s got his finger in nearly everything.”

The day passed without further developments. In the after-
noon, Mr. van Hoorn at length succeeded in forcing his bash-
ful nephew into the company of some lively Polish girls.
They all went off ski-ing together. Kuno was not best pleased,
but he accepted the situation with his usual grace. He seemed
to have developed quite a taste for Mr. van Hoorn’s society.
The two of them spent the afternoon indoors.

After tea, as we were leaving the lounge, we came face to
face with M. Bernstein. He passed us by without the faintest
interest.

As I lay in bed that night I almost reached the conclusion
that Margot must be a figment of Arthur’s imagination. For
what purpose he had been created I couldn’t conceive. Nor
did I much care. It was veiy nice here. I was enjoying myself;
in a day or two I should have learnt to ski. I would make

149

the most of my holiday, I decided; and, following Arthur s
advice, forget the reasons for which I had come. As for Kuno,
my fears had been unfounded. He hadn’t been cheated out
of a farthing. So what was there to worry about?

On the afternoon of the third day of our visit, Piet sug-
gested, of his own accord, that we two should go skating on
the lake, alone. The poor boy, as I had noticed at lunch,
was near bursting-point. He had had more than enough of his
uncle, of Kuno and of the Polish girls; it had become neces-
sary for him to vent his feelings on somebody, and, of a bad
bunch, I seemed the least unlikely to be sympathetic. No
sooner were we on the ice than he started: I was astonished
to find how much and with what vehemence he could talk.

What did I think of this place? he asked. Wasn’t all this
luxury sickening? And the people? Weren’t they too idiotic
and revolting for words? How could they behave as they
did, with Europe in its present state? Had they no decency at
all? Had they no national pride, to mix with a lot of Jews who
were ruining their countries? How did I feel about it, my-
self?

‘‘What does your uncle say to it all?’' I counter-questioned,
to avoid an answer.

Piet shrugged his shoulders angrily.

“Oh, my uncle ... he doesn’t take the least interest in
politics. He only cares for his old pictures. He’s more of a
Frenchman than a Dutchman, my father says.”

Piet’s studies in Germany had turned him into an ardent
Fascist. M. Janin’s instinct hadn’t been so incorrect, after
all. The young man was browner than the Browns.

“What my country needs is a man like Hitler. A real leader.
A people without ambition is unworthy to exist.” He turned
his handsome, humourless face and regarded me sternly.
“You, with your Empire, you must understand that.”

But I refused to be drawn.

“Do you often travel with your uncle?” I asked.

“No. As a matter of fact I was surprised when he asked me

150

to come with him here. At such short notice, too; only a week
ago. But I love ski-ing, and I thought it would all be quite
primitive and simple, like the tour I made with some students
last Christmas. We went to the Riesengebirge. We used to
wash ourselves every morning with snow in a bucket. One
must learn to harden the body. Self-disciphne is most impor-
tant in these times. . .

“Which day did you arrive here?” I interrupted.

“Let’s see. It must have been the day before you did.” A
thought suddenly struck Piet. He became more human. He
even smiled. “By the way, that’s a funny thing I’d quite for-
gotten . . . my uncle was awfuUy keen to get to know you.”

“To know me?”

“Yes. . . .” Piet laughed and blushed. “As a matter of fact,
he told me to try and find out who you were.”

“He did?”

“You see, he thought you were the son of a friend of his:
an Englishman. But he’d only met the son once, a long time
ago, and he wasn’t sure. He was afraid that, if you saw him
and he didn’t recognize you, you’d be offended.’”

“Well, I certainly helped you to make my acquaintance,
didn’t I?”

We both laughed.

“Yes, you did.”

“Ha, ha! How very funny!”

“Yes, isn’t it? Very funny indeed.”

When we returned to the hotel for tea, we had some trou-
ble in finding Kuno and Mr. van Hoom. They were sitting
together in a remote comer of the smoking-room, at a dis-
tance from the otiier guests. Mr. van Hoom was no longer
laughing; he spoke quietly and seriously, with his eyes on
Kuno’s face. And Kuno himself was as grave as a judge. I
had the impression that he was profoundly disturbed and
perplexed by the subject of their conversation. But this was
only an impression, and a momentary one. As soon as Mr.
van Hoom became aware of my approach, he laughed loudly

151

and gave Kuno’s elbow a nudge, as if reaching the climax of
a funny story. Kuno laughed too, but with less enthusiasm.

‘‘Well, well!” exclaimed Mr. van Hoorn. “Here are the
boys! As hungry as hunters, I’ll be bound! And we two old
fogies have been wasting the whole afternoon yarning away
indoors. My goodness, is it as late as that? I say, I want my
tea!”

“A telegram for you, sir,” said the voice of a page-boy, just
behind me. I stepped aside, supposing that he was address-
ing one of the others, but no; he held the silver tray towards
me. There was no mistake. On the envelope, I read my name.

“Aha!” cried Mr. van Hoorn. “Your sweetheart’s getting im-
patient. She wants you to go back to her.”

I tore open the envelope, unfolded the paper. The message
was only three words:

Please return immediately.

I read it over several times. I smiled.

“As a matter of fact,” I told Mr. van Hoorn, “you’re quite
right. She does.”

The telegram was signed “Ludwig.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Something had happened to Arthur. That much was obvious.
Otherwise, if he’d wanted me, he’d have sent for me himself.
And the mess he was in, whatever it was, must have some-
thing to do with the Party, since Bayer had signed the tele-

152

gram. Here my reasoning came to an end. It was bounded by
guesses and possibilities as vague and limitless as the dark-
ness which enclosed the train. Lying in my berth, I tried to
sleep and couldn t. The swaying of the coach, the clank of
the wheels kept time with the excited, anxious throbbing of
my heart. Arthur, Bayer, Margot, Schmidt; I tried tlie puzzle
backwards, sideways, all ways up. It kept me awake the
whole night.

Years later it seemed, though actually only the next after-
noon, I let myself into the flat with the latch-key; quickly
pushed open the door of my room. In the middle of it sat
Frl. Schroeder, dozing, in the best arm-chair. She had taken
off her slippers and was resting her stockinged feet on the
footstool. When one of her lodgers was away, she often did
this. She was indulging in the dream of most landladies, that
the whole place was hers.

If I had returned from the dead, she could hardly have ut-
tered a more piercing scream on waking and seeing my figure
in the doorway.

“Herr Bradshaw! How you startled me!”

“Fm sorry, Frl. Schroeder. No, please don’t get up. ^Vhe^e*s
Herr Norris?”

“Herr Norris?” She was still a bit dazed. “I don’t know,
I’m sure. He said he’d be back about seven.”

“He’s still living here, then?”

“Why, of course, Herr Bradshaw. WTiat an idea!” Frl.
Schroeder regarded me with astonishment and anxiety- “Is
anything the matter? Why didn’t you let me know that you
were coming home sooner? I was going to have given your
room a thorough turn-out to-morrow.”

“That’s perfectly all right. I’m sure every^thing looks very
nice. Herr Norris hasn’t been ill, has he?”

“Why, no.” Frl. Schroeder s perplexity 'was increasing with
every moment. “That is, if he has he hasn’t said a word about
it to me, and he’s been up and about from morning to mid-
night. Did he write and tell you so?”

“Oh no, he didn’t do that . . . only • . . when I went

153

away I thought he looked rather pale. Has anybody rung
up for me or left any messages?”

‘‘Nothing, Herr Bradshaw. You remember, you told all
your pupils you would be away until the New Year.”

“Yes, of course.”

I walked over to the window, looked down into the dank,
empty street. No, it wasn’t quite empty. Down there, on the
corner, stood a small man in a buttoned-up overcoat and a
felt hat. He paced quietly up and down, his hands folded
behind his back, as if waiting for a girl friend.

“Shall I get you some hot water?” asked Frl. Schroeder
tactfully. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked
tired, dirty and unshaved

“No, thank you,” I said, smiling. “There’s something I’ve
got to attend to first. I shall be back in about an hour. Per-
haps you’d be so kind and heat the bath?”

“Yes, Ludwig’s here,” the girls in the outer office at the
Wilhelmstrasse told me. “Go right in.”

Bayer didn’t seem in the least surprised to see me. He
looked up from his papers with a smile.

“So here you are, Mr. Bradshaw! Please sit down. You
have enjoyed your holiday, I hope?”

I smiled.

“Well, I was just beginning to . .

“When you got my telegram? I am sorry, but it was neces-
sary, you see.”

Bayer paused; regarded me thoughtfully; continued:

“I’m afraid that what I have to say may be unpleasant for
you, Mr. Bradshaw. But it is not right that you are kept any
longer in ignorance of the truth.”

I could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room; every-
thing seemed to have become very quiet. My heart was
thumping uncomfortably against my ribs. I suppose that I
half guessed what was coming.

“You went to Switzerland,” Bayer continued, “with a cer-
tain Baron Pregnitz?”

154

^es. That s right." I licked my lips with my tongue.

Now I am going to ask you a question which may seem
that I interfere very much in your private affairs. Please
do not be offended. If you do not wish it, you will not answer,
you understand?”

My throat had gone dry. I tried to clear it, and made an
absurdly loud, grating sound.

Til answer any question you like,” I said, rather huskily.

Bayers eyes brightened approvingly. He leant forward
towards me across the writing-table.

‘1 am glad that you take this attitude, Mr. Bradshaw. . . .
You wish to help us. That is good. . . . Now, will you tell
me, please, what was the reason which Norris gave you
that you should go with this Baron Pregnitz to Switzer-
land?”

Again I heard that clock. Bayer, his elbows resting on the
table, regarded me benevolently, with encouraging attention.
For the second time, I cleared my throat.

‘Well,” I began, “first of all, you see . .

It was a long, silly stoiy, which seemed to take hours to tell,
I hadn’t realized how foolish, how contemptible some of it
would sound. I felt horribly ashamed of myself, blushed,
tried to be humorous and weakly failed, defended and then
accused my motives, avoided certain passages, only to blurt
them out a moment later, under the neutral inquisition of his
friendly eyes. The story seemed to involve a confession of all
my weaknesses to that silent, attentive man. I have never
felt so humiliated in my life.

When, at last, I had finished, Bayer made a slight move-
ment.

‘Thank you, Mr. Bradshaw, All this, you see, is very much
as we had supposed. . . . Our workers in Paris know this
Mr. van Hoorn already very well. He is a clever man. He has
given us much trouble.”

“You mean . . . that he’s a police agent?”

“UnoflBcially, yes. He collects information of all kinds and
sells it to those who will pay him. There are many who do

155

this but most of them are quite stupid and not dangerous at
all.”

see. . . . And van Hoorn s been making use of Norris
to collect information?”

‘That is so. Yes.”

"But how on earth did he get Norris to help him? What
story did he tell him? I wonder Norris wasn’t suspi-
cious.”

In spite of his gravity, Bayers eyes showed a sparkle of
amusement.

"It is possible that Norris was most suspicious indeed. No.
You have misunderstood me, Mr. Bradshaw. I have not said
that van Hoorn deceived him. That was not necessary.”

"Not necessary?” I stupidly echoed.

"Not necessary. No . . . Norris was quite aware, you see,
of what van Hoorn wanted. They understood each other very
well. Since Norris returned to Germany, he has been receiv-
ing regularly sums of money through van Hoorn from the
French Secret Service.”

"I don’t believe it!”

“Nevertheless, it is true. I can prove it, if you wish. Norris
has been paid to keep an eye on us, to give information about
our plans and movements.” Bayer smiled and raised his hand,
as if to anticipate a protest. "Oh, this is not so terrible as it
sounds. The information which he had to give was of no im-
portance. In our movement, we have not the necessity to
make great plots, as are described of us in the capitalist Press
and the criminal romances. We act openly. It is easy for all
to know what we do. It is possible that Norris can have been
able to tell his friends the names of some of our messengers
who are going frequently between Berlin and Paris. And,
perhaps, also, certain addresses. But this can have been only
at the first.”

"You ve known about him a long time already, lien?” I
hardly recognized tlie sound of my own voice,

Bayer smiled brilliantly.

"Quite a long time. Yes.” His tone was soothing. "Norris

156

has even been very helpful to us, though he did not wish it.
We were able, occasionally, to convey much false impres-
sions to our opponents through this channel.”

With bewildering speed, the jig-saw puzzle was fitting it-
self together in my brain. In a flash, another piece was added.
I remembered the morning after the elections; Bayer in this
very room, handing Arthur the sealed packet from his
writing-table drawer.

"Yes ... I see now. . .

"My dear Mr. Bradshaw.” Bayer s tone was kind, almost
paternal, "Please do not distress yourself too much. Norris
is your friend, I know. Mind, I have not said this against him
as a man; the private life is not our concern. We are all con-
vinced tliat you cannot have known of this. You ha\^e acted
throughout with good faith towards us. I wish it had been
possible to keep you in ignorance over this matter.”

“What I still don t xmderstand is, how Pregnitz . .

"Ah, I am coming to that. . . . Norris, you see, found him-
self unable any longer to satisfy his Paris friends with these
reports. They were so often insuflScient or false. And so he
proposed to van Hoorn the idea of a meeting with Pregnitz.”

"And the glass factory?”

"It exists only in the imagination of Norris. Here he made
use of your inexperience. It was not for this that van Hoorn
paid your expenses to Switzerland. Baron Pregnitz is a poli-
tician, not a financier.”

"You don’t mean . . . ?”

"Yes, this is what I wished to tell you. Pregnitz has access
to many secrets of the German Government. It is possible
for him to obtain copies of maps, plans and private docu-
ments which van Hoorn s employers will pay verj^ much to
see. Perhaps Pregnitz will be tempted. This does not concern
us. We wish only to warn you personally, that you may not
discover yourself innocently in a prison for the high treason.”

"My God. . , how on earth did you get to know all this?”

Bayer smiled.

"You think that we have also our spies? No, that is not

157

necessary. All information of this sort one can obtain so
easily from the police.”

“Then the police know?”

“I do not think that they know all for certain, yet. But they
are very suspicious. Two of them came here to ask us ques-
tions concerning Norris, Pregnitz and yourself. From these
questions one could guess a good deal. I believe we have sat-
isfied them that you are not a dangerous conspirator,” Bayer
smiled, “nevertheless, it seemed best to telegraph to you at
once, that you might not be further involved.”

“It was very good of you to bother what became of me at
all”

“We try always to help those who help us; although, un-
fortunately, this is sometimes not possible. You have not seen
Norris yet?”

“No. He was out when I arrived.”

“So? That is excellent. It is better that you should tell him
these things yourself. Since a week he has not been here.
Tell him, please, that we wish him no harm; but it will be
better for himself if he goes away from Germany at once.
And warn him, also, that the police have him under observ-
ance. They are opening all letters which he receives or writes;
of this I am sure.”

“All right,” I said, “111 tell him that.”

“You will? That is good.” Bayer rose to his feet. “And now,
Mr. Bradshaw, please do not make yourself reproaches. You
have been foolish, perhaps. Never mind; we are all sometimes
very, very foolish. You have done nothing to be ashamed. I
think that now you will be more careful with whom you
make a friend, eh?”

“Yes, I shall.”

Bayer smiled. He clapped me encouragingly on the shoul-
der.

“Then now we will forget this unpleasant matter. You
would like to do some more work for us soon? Excellent. • . .
You teU Norris what I said, eh? Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

158

I shook hands with him, I suppose, and got myself off the
premises in the usual manner. I must have behaved quite
normally, because nobody in the outer oflBce stared. It was
only when I was out in the street tliat I began to run. I was
suddenly in a tremendous hurry; I wanted to get this over,
quick.

A taxi passed; I was inside it before the driver had had
time to slow down. “Drive as fast as you can,” I told him. We
skidded in and out of the traffic; it had been raining and the
roadway was slimy with mud. The lamps were lighted al-
ready; it was getting dark. I lit a cigarette and threw it away
after a couple of puffs. My hands were trembling, otherwise
I was perfectly calm, not angry, not even disgusted; nothing.
The puzzle fitted together perfectly. I could see it all, if I
wished to look at it, a compact, vivid picture, at a single
glance. All I want, I thought, is to get this over. Now.

Arthur was back already. He looked out of his bedroom
as I opened the front door of the flat.

“Come in, dear boy! Come in! This is indeed a pleasant
surprise! When Frl. Schroeder told me you'd returned, I
could hardly believe it. What was it made you come back
so soon? Were you homesick for Berlin; or did you pine for
my society? Please say you did! We Ve all missed you very
much here. Our Christmas dinner was tasteless indeed with-
out you. Yes ... I must say, you're not looking as well as
rd expected; perhaps you're tired after the journey? Sit down
here. Have you had tea? Let me give you a glass of some-
thing to refresh you?”

“No, thank you, Arthur.”

‘Tou won t? Well, well . . . perhaps youTI change your
mind later. How did you leave our friend Pregnitz? Flourish-
ing, I hope?”

“Yes. He's all right.”

“I'm glad to hear that. Very glad. And now, William, I
really must congratulate you on the admirable skill and tact
with which you fulfilled your little mission. Margot was more

159

than satisfied. And he’s very particular, you know; very diffi-
cult to please. , . .”

‘‘You Ve heard from him, then?”

“Oh, yes. I got a long telegram this morning. The money
will arrive to-morrow. Tm bound to say this for Margot: he’s
most punctual and correct in these matters. One can always
rely on him.”

“Do you mean to say that Kuno’s agreed?”

“No, not that, alas. Not yet. These things aren’t settled in
a day. But Margot’s distinctly hopeful. It seems that Pregnitz
was a little difficult to persuade at first. Pie didn’t quite see
how this transaction would be of advantage to his firm. But
now he’s become definitely interested. He wants time to think
it over, of course. Meanwhile, I get half my share as we ar-
ranged. I’m thankful to say that it’s more than sufficient to
cover my travelling expenses; so that’s one weight lifted from
my mind. As for the rest, I’m convinced, personally, that
Pregnitz will agree in the end.”

“Yes ... I suppose they all do.”

“Nearly all, yes . . .” Arthur agreed absently; became
aware, the next moment, of something strange in my tone^
“I don’t think, William, I quite understand what you mean.”

“Don’t you? I’ll put it more plainly then: I suppose van
Hoorn usually succeeds in getting people to sell him what-
ever he wants to buy?”

“Well — er — ^I don’t loiow that, in this case, one could de-
scribe it as a sale. As I think I told you . . .”

“Arthur,” I interrupted wearily, “you can stop lying now*
I know all about it.”

“Oh,” he began, and was silent. The shock seemed to have
taken away his breath. Sinking heavily into a chair, he re-
garded his finger-nails with unconcealed dismay.

“This is all my own fault, really, I suppose. I was a fool
ever to have trusted you. To do you justice, you more or less
warned me against it, often enough.”

Arthur looked up at me quickly, like a spaniel which is
going to be whipped. His lips moved, but he didn’t speak*

160

The deep-cleft dimple appeared for a moment in his col-
lapsed chin. Furtively, he scratched his jowl, withdrawing
his hand again immediately, as though he were afraid this
gesture might annoy me.

‘1 ought to have Imown that you’d find a use for me, sooner
or later; even if it was only as a decoy duck. You always find
a use for everybody, don’t you? If I’d landed up in prison it’d
have damn’ well served me right.”

'William, I give you my word of honour, I never . .

“I won’t pretend,” I continued, “that I care a damn what
happens to Kuno. If he’s fool enough to let himself in for
this, he does it with his eyes open. . . . But I must say this,
Arthur: if anybody but Bayer had told me you’d ever do the
dirty on the Party, I’d have called him a bloody liar. You
thiiJc that’s very sentimental of me, I suppose?”

Arthur started visibly at the name.

“So Bayer knows, does he?”

“Of course.”

“Oh dear, oh dear. . .

He seemed to have collapsed into himself, like a scarecrow
in the rain. His loose, stubbly cheeks were blotched and pal-
lid, his Hps parted in a vacant snarl of misery.

“I never really told van Hoorn anything of importance,
William. I swear to you I didn’t.”

“I know. You never got the chance. It doesn’t seem to me
that you’re much good, even as a crook.”

“Don’t be angry with me, dear boy. I can’t bear it”

“I’m not angry with you; I’m angry with myself for being
such an idiot I thought you were my friend, you see.”

“I don’t ask you to forgive me,” said Arthur, humbly.
"‘Tou’U never do that, of course. But don’t judge me too
harshly. You’re young. Y’our standards are so severe. When
you get to my age, you’ll see things differently, perhaps. It’s
very easy to condemn when one isn’t tempted. Remember
that”

“I don’t condemn you. As for idy standards, if I ever had
any, you’ve muddled them up completely, I expect you’re

161

right. In your place, Td probably have done just the same.’"

‘‘You see?” Arthur eagerly followed up his advantage. “I
knew you’d come to look at it in that light.”

“I don’t want to look at it in any light. I’m too utterly sick
of the whole filthy business. . . . My God, I wish you’d go
away somewhere where I’ll never see you again!”

Arthur sighed.

“How hard you are, WilHam. I should never have expected
it. You always seemed to me to have such a sympathetic na-
ture.”

“That was what you counted on, I suppose? Well, I think
you’ll find that the soft ones object to being cheated even
more than the others. They mind it more because they feel
that they’ve only themselves to blame.”

“You’re perfectly justified, of course. I deserve all the
unkind things you say. Don’t spare me. But I promise you
most solemnly, the thought that I was implicating you in any
sort of crime never once entered my head. You see, every-
thing has gone off exactly as we planned. After all, where was
the risk?”

“There was more risk than you think. The police knew aU
about our little expedition before we’d even started.”

“The police? William, you’re not in earnest!”

“You don’t think I’m trying to be funny, do you? Bayer told
me to warn you. They’ve been round to see him and make
inquiries.”

“My God ”

The last traces of stiffness had gone out of Arthur. He sat
there like a crumpled paper bag, his blue eyes vivid with ter-
ror.

“But they can’t possibly . .

I went to the window.

“Come and look, if you don’t believe me. He’s still there.”

“Who’s still there?”

“The detective who’s watching this house.”

Without a word, Arthur hurried to my side at the window
and took a peep at the man in the buttoned-up overcoat,

\$2

Then he went slowly back to his chair. He seemed sud-
denly to have become much calmer.

“What am I to do?” He appeared to be thinking aloud
rather than addressing me.

“You must clear out, of course; the moment you Ve got this
money.”

“They’ll arrest me, William.”

“Oh no, they wont. They’d have done it before this, if they
were going to. Bayer says they’ve been reading all your let-
ters. . . . Besides, they don’t know everything for certain
yet, he thinks.”

Arthur pondered for some minutes in silence. He looked
up at me in nervous appeal.

“Then you’re not going to . . He stopped.

“Not going to what?”

“To tell them, well — er — everything?”

“My God, Arthur!” I literally gasped. “What, exactly, do
you take me for?”

“No, of course, dear boy . . . Forgive me. I might have
known. . . .” Arthur coughed apologetically. “Only, just for
the moment, I was afraid. There might be quite a large re-
ward, you see, . .

For several seconds I was absolutely speechless. Seldom
have I been so shocked. Open-mouthed, I regarded him with
a mixture of indignation and amusement, curiosity and dis-
gust. Timidly, his eyes met mine. There could be no doubt
about it. He was honestly unaware of having said anything
to surprise or offend. I found my voice at last.

“Well, of all the ...”

But my outburst was cut short by a furious volley of knocks
on the bedroom door.

“Herr Bradshaw! Herr Bradshaw!” Frl. Schroeder was in
frantic agitation. “The waters boiling and I cant turn on
the tap! Come quick this moment, or we shall all be blown
to bits!”

“We’ll discuss this later,” I told Arthur, and hurried out of
the room.

163

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Theee-<2uabters of an hour later, washed and shaved, I re-
turned to Arthur s room. I found him peering- cautiously
down into the street from behind the shelter of the lace cur-
tain.

‘There’s a different one there now, William,” he told me.
‘‘They relieved each other about five minutes ago.”

His tone \vas gleeful; he seemed positively to be enjoying
the situation. I joined him at the window. Sure enough, a
tall man in a bowler hat had taken the place of his colleague
at the thankless task of waiting for the invisible girl friend.

“Poor fellow,” Arthur giggled, “he looks terribly cold,
doesn’t he? Do you think he’d be offended if I sent him down
a medicine bottle full of brandy, with my card?”

“He mightn’t see the joke.”

Strangely enough, it was I who felt embarrassed. With
indecent ease, Arthur seemed to have forgotten all the un-
pleasant tilings I had said to him less than an hour before.
His manner towards me was as natural as if nothing had hap-
pened. I felt myself harden towards him again. In my bath,
I had softened, regretted some cruel words, condemned
others as spiteful or priggish. I had rehearsed a partial recon-
ciliation, on magnanimous terms. But Arthur, of course, was
to make the advances. Instead of which, here he was, blandly
opening his wine-cupboard with his wonted hospitable air.

“At any rate, William, you wont refuse a glass yourself?
It’ll give you an appetite for supper.”

“No, thank you.”

I tried to make my tone stem; it sounded merely sulky.
Arthur’s face fell at once. His ease of manner, I saw now, had

164

been only experimental. He sighed deeply, resigned to fur-
ther penitence, assuming an expression which was like a
funeral top-hat, lugubrious, hypocritical, discreet. It became
him so ill, that in spite of myself, I had to smile.

‘It’s no good, Arthur. I can t keep it up!”

He was too cautious to reply to this, except with a shy, sly
smile. This time, he wasn’t going to risk an over-hasty re-
sponse.

“I suppose,” I continued reflectively, “that none of them
were ever really angry with you, were they, afterwards?”

Arthur didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Demurely he
inspected his finger-nails.

“Not everybody, alas, has your generous nature, William ”
It was no good; we had returned to our verbal card-playing.
The moment of frankness, which might have redeemed so
much, had been elegantly avoided. Arthur’s orientally sensi-
tive spirit shrank from the rough, healthy, modern catch-as-
catch-can of home-truths and confessions; he offered me a
compliment instead. Here we were, as so often before, at
the edge of that delicate, almost invisible line which divided
our two worlds. We should never cross it now. I wasn’t old or
subtle enough to find the approach. There was a disappoint-
ing pause, during which he rummaged in the cupboard.

“Are you quite sure you won’t have a drop of brandy?”

I sighed. I gave him up. I smiled.

“All right. Thanks. I will.”

We drank ceremoniously, touching glasses. Arthur
smacked his lips with unconcealed satisfaction. He appeared
to imagine that something had been symbolized: a reconcilia-
tion, or, at any rate, a truce. But no, I couldn’t feel this. The
ugly, dirty fact was still there, right under our noses, and
no amount of brandy could wash it away.

Arthur appeared, for the moment, sublimely unconscious
of its existence. I was glad. I felt a sudden anxiety to protect
him from a realization of what he had done. Remorse is not
for the elderly. When it comes to them, it is not purging or
uplifting, but merely degrading and wretched, like a blad-

165

der disease. Arthiir must never repent. And indeed, it didn’t
seem probable that he ever would.

“Let s go out and eat/’ I said, feeling that the sooner we
got out of this ill-omened room the better. Ardiur cast an
involuntary glance in the direction of the window.

“Don’t you think, William, that Frl. Schroeder would make
us some scrambled eggs? I hardly feel like venturing out of
doors, just now.”

“Of course we must go out, Arthur. Don’t be silly. You must
behave as normally as possible, or they’ll think you’re hatch-
ing some plot. Besides, think of that unfortunate man down
there. How dull it must be for him. Perhaps, if we go out,
he’ll be able to get something to eat, too.”

“Well, I must confess,” Arthur doubtfully agreed, “I hadn’t
thought of it in that light. Very well, if you’re quite sure it’s
wise. . .

It is a curious sensation to know that you are being fol-
lowed by a detective; especially when, as in this case, you are
actually anxious not to escape him. Emerging into the street,
at Arthur’s side, I felt like the Home Secretary leaving the
House of Commons with the Prime Minister. The man in the
bowler hat was either a novice at his job or exceedingly
bored with it. He made no attempt at concealment; stood
staring at us from the middle of a pool of lamplight. A sort of
perverted sense of courtesy prevented me from looking over
my shoulder to see if he w^as following; as for Arthur, his em-
barrassment was only too painfully visible. His neck seemed
to telescope into his body, so that three-quarters of his face
was hidden by his coat collar; his gait was that of a murderer
retreating from a corpse. I soon noticed that I was sub-
consciously regulating my pace; I kept hurrying forward in
an instinctive desire to get away from our pursuer, then slow-
ing down, lest we should leave him altogether behind. Dur-
ing the walk to the restaurant, Arthur and I didn’t exchange
a word.

Barely had we taken our seats when the detective entered.
Without a glance in our direction, he strode over to the bar

166

and was soon morosely consuming a boiled sausage and a
glass of lemonade.

“I suppose,” I said, "that they re not allowed to drink beer
when they re on duty.”

"Ssh, William!” giggled Arthur, "hell hear you!”

"I don’t care if he does. He cant arrest me for laughing
at him.”

Nevertheless, such is the latent power of one’s upbringing,
I lowered my voice almost to a whisper.

“I suppose they pay him his expenses. You know, we really
ought to have taken him to the Montmartre, and given him a
treat.”

"Or to the opera.”

"It’d be rather amusing to go to church.”

We sniggered together, like two boys poking fun at the
schoolmaster. The tall man, if he was aware of our com-
ments, bore himself with considerable dignity. His face, pre-
sented to us in profile, was gloomy, thoughtful, even philo-
sophic; he might well have been composing a poem. Having
finished the sausage, he ordered an Italian salad.

The joke, such as it was, lasted right through our meal.
I prolonged it, consciously, as much as I could. So, I think,
did Arthur. Tacitly, we helped each other. We were both
afraid of a pause. Silence would be too eloquent. And there
was so little left for us to talk about. We left the restaurant
as soon as was decently possible, accompanied by our at-
tendant, who followed us home, like a nurse, to see us into
bed. Through the window of Arthur’s room, we watched him
take up his former position, under the lamp-post opposite
the house.

"How long win he stay there, do you think?” Arthur asked
me anxiously.

“The whole night, probably.”

"Oh dear, I do hope not. If he does, I shan’t be able to
sleep a wink.”

"Perhaps if you appear at your window in pyjamas, hell
go away.”

!67

"‘Really, William, I hardly think I could do anything so
immodest.” Arthur stifled a yawn.

“Weil,” I said, a bit awkwardly, “I think Til go to bed
now.”

“Just what I was going to suggest myself, dear boy.” Hold-
ing his chin absently between his finger and thumb, Arthur
looked vaguely round the room; added, with a simplicity
wliich excluded all hint of irony:

“We’ve both had a tiring day.”

Next morning, at any rate, there was no time to feel em-
barrassed. We had too much to do. No sooner was Arthur’s
head free from the barbers hands than I came into his
room, in my dressing-gown, to hold a conference. The smaller
detective in the overcoat was now on duty. Arthur had to
admit that he had no idea if either of them had spent the
night outside the house. Compassion hadn’t, after all, dis-
turbed his sleep.

The first problem was, of course, to decide on Arthur s
destination. Inquiries must be made at the nearest travel
bureau as to possible ships and routes. Arthur had already
decided finally against Europe.

“I feel I need a complete change of scene, hard as it is
to tear oneself away. One’s so confined here, so restricted.
As you get older, William, you’ll feel that the world gets
smaller. The frontiers seem to close in, until there’s scarcely
room to breathe.”

“WTiat an unpleasant sensation that must be.”

“It is.” Arthur sighed. “It is indeed. I may be a little over-
wrought at the present moment, but I must confess that, to
me, the countries of Europe are nothing more or less than a
collection of mouse-traps. In some of them, the cheese is of a
superior quality, that is the only difference.”

We next discussed which of us should go out and make the
inquiries. Arthur was most unwilling to do this.

“But, William, if I go myself, our friend below will most
certainly follow me.”

168

“Of course he will. That’s just what we want. As soon as
you’ve let the authorities know that you mean to clear out,
you’ll have set their minds at rest. I’m sure they ask nothing
better than to see your back.”

“Well, you may be right. . . .”

But Arthur didn’t like it. Such tactics revolted all his
secretive instincts. “It seems positively indecent,” he added.

“Look here,” I said, cunningly. “I’ll go if you really want
me to. But only on condition that you break the news to Frl.
Schroeder yourself while I’m away.”

“Really, dear boy . . . No. I couldn’t possibly do that.
Very well, have it your own way. . .

From my window, half an hour later, I watched him
emerge into the street. The detective took, apparently, not
the faintest notice of his exit; he was engaged in reading the
name-plates within the doorway of the opposite house. Ar-
thur set off briskly, looking neither to left nor right. He re-
minded me of the man in the poem who fears to catch a
glimpse of the demon which is treading in his footsteps. The
detective continued to study the name-plates with extreme
interest. Then at last, when I had begun to get positively
exasperated at his apparent blindness, he straightened him-
self, pulled out his watch, regarded it with evident surprise,
hesitated, appeared to consider, and finally walked away
with quick, impatient strides, like a man who has been kept
waiting too long. I watched his small figure out of sight in
amused admiration. He was an artist.

Meanwhile, I had my own, unpleasant task. I found Frl.
Schroeder in the living-room, laying cards, as she did every
morning of her life, to discover what would happen during
the day. It was no use beating about the bush.

“Frl. Schroeder, Herr Norris has just had some bad news.
He’ll have to leave Berlin at once. He asked me to tell
you . , .”

I stopped, feeling horribly uncomfortable, swallowed,
blurted out:

“He asked me to tell you that . . • he’d like to pay for his

169

room for January and the whole of February as well . . ”

Frl. Schroeder was silent. I concluded, lamely —

“Because of his having to go off at such short notice, you
see . .

She didn’t look up. There was a muffled sound, and a
large tear fell on to the face of a card on the table before her.
I felt like crying, too.

“Perhaps . . I was cowardly. “It’ll only be for a few
months. He may be coming back. . .

But Frl. Schroeder either didn’t hear or didn’t believe
this. Her sobs redoubled; she did not attempt to restrain
them. Perhaps Arthur’s departure was merely the last straw;
once started, she had plenty to cry about. The rent and taxes
in arrears, the bills she couldn’t pay, the rudeness of the coal-
man, her pains in the back, her boils, her poverty, her loneli-
ness, her gradually approaching death. It was dreadful to
hear her. I began wandering about the room, nervously
touching the furniture, in an ecstasy of discomfort.

“Frl. Schroeder ... it’s all right, really, it is . . . don’t
. . . please. . .

She got over it at last. Mopping her eyes on a comer of
the table-cloth, she deeply sighed. Sadly, her inflamed glance
moved over the array of cards. She exclaimed, with a kind
of mournful triumph:

“Well, I never! Just look at that, Herr Bradshaw. The ace
of spades . . . upside down! I might have known some-
thing like this would happen. The cards are never wrong,”

Arthur arrived back from the travel bureau in a taxi, about
an hour later. His hands were full of papers and illustrated
brochures. He seemed tired and depressed.

“How did you get on?” I asked.

“Give me time, William Give me time . . . I’m a little
out of breath. . . .”

Collapsing heavily into a chair, he fanned himself with
his hat I strolled over to the window'. The detective wasn’t
at his usual post Turning my head to the left, I saw him ^

170

however, some way farther down the street, examining the
contents of the grocer s shop.

‘‘Is he back already?” Arthur inquired.

I nodded.

“Really? To give the devil his due, that young man will
go far in his unsavoury profession. ... Do you know, Wil-
liam, he had the effrontery to come right into the ofiBce and
stand bes.de me at the counter? I even heard him making
inquiries about a trip to the Harz.”

“Perhaps he really wanted to go there; you never know. He
may be having his holidays soon.”

“Well, well . . . at all events, it was most upsetting ... I
had the greatest difficulty in arriving at the extremely grave
decision I had to make.”

“And what’s the verdict?”

“I much regret to say,” Arthur regarded the buttons on his
boot despondently, “that it will have to be Mexico.”

“Good God!”

“You see, dear boy, the possibilities, at such short notice,
are very limited ... I should have greatly preferred Rio,
of course, or the Argentine. I even toyed with China. But
everywhere, nowadays, there are such absurd formalities. All
kinds of stupid and impertinent questions are asked. When
I was young, it was very different. ... An English gentle-
man was welcome everywhere, especially with a first-class
ticket.”

“And when do you leave?”

“There’s a boat at midday to-morrow. I think I shall go
to Hamburg to-day, on the evening train. It’s more com-
fortable, and, perhaps, on the whole, wiser; don’t you agree?”

“I dare say. Yes. . . . This seems a tremendous step to
take, all of a sudden. Have you any friends in Mexico?”

Arthur giggled. “I have friends everywhere, WiRiam, or
shall I say accomplices?”

“And what shaU you do, when you arrive?”

“I shall go straight to Mexico City (a most depressing
spot; although I expect it’s altered a great deal since I was

171

there in nineteen-eleven), I shall then take rooms in the
best hotel and await a moment of inspiration. ... I don't
suppose I shall starve.”

“No, Arthur,” I laughed, “I certainly don't see you starv-
mg!

We brightened. We had several drinks. We became quite
lively.

Frl. Schroeder was called in, for a start had to be made
with Arthur's packing. She was melancholy at first, and in-
clined to be reproachful, but a glass of cognac worked won-
ders. She had her own explanation of the reasons for Ar-
thur’s sudden departure.

“Ah, Herr Norris, Herr Norris! You should have been more
careful. A gentleman at your time of life ought to have ex-
perience enough of these things . . .” She winked tipsily at
me, behind his back. “Why didn't you stay faithful to your
old Schroeder? She would have helped you, she knew about
it all the time!”

Arthur, perplexed and vaguely embarrassed, looked ques-
tioningly to me for an explanation. I pretended complete
ignorance. xAnd now the trunks arrived, fetched down by the
porter and his son from the attics at the top of the house.
Frl. Schroeder exclaimed, as she packed, over the magnif-
icence of Arthur's clothes. Arthur lidmself, generous and gay,
began distributing largess. The porter got a suit, the porter's
wife a bottle of sherry, their son a pair of snakeskin shoes
which were much too small for him, but which he insisted he
would squeeze into somehow. The piles of newspapers and
periodicals were to be sent to a hospital. Arthur certainly
gave things away with an air; he knew how to play the Grand
Seigneur, The porter's family went away grateful and deeply
impressed. I saw that the beginnings of a legend had been
created.

As for Frl. Schroeder herself, she was positively loaded
with gifts. In addition to the etchings and the Japanese
screen, Arthur gave her three flasks of perfume, some hair-
lotion, a powder-pufiE, the entire contents of his wine-

172

cupboard, two beautiful scarves, and, amidst much blushing,
a pair of his coveted silk combinations.

'1 do wish, William, you d take something, too. Just some
little trifle. . . ”

"All right, Arthur, thank you very much. ... I tell you
what, have you still got Miss SmitKs Torture Chamber? I
always liked it the best of those books of yours.”

"You did? Really?” Arthur flushed with pleasure, "How
charming of you to say so! You know, William, I really think
I must tell you a secret. The last of my secrets. ... I wrote
that book myself!”

"Arthur, you didn’t!”

“I did, I assure you!” Arthur giggled, delighted. "Years
ago, now. . . . It’s a youthful indiscretion of which I’ve
since felt rather ashamed ... It was printed privately in
Paris. I’m told that some of the best-known collectors in
Europe have copies in their libraries. It’s exceedingly rare.”

"And you never wrote anything elseF’

“Never, alas. ... I put my genius into my life, not into
my art. That remark is not original. Never mind. By the way,
since we are on this topic, do you know that I’ve never said
good-bye to my dear Anni? I really think I might ask her
to come here this afternoon, don’t you? After all, I’m not
leaving until after tea.”

"Better not, Arthur. You’ll need all your strength for the
journey.”

"Well, ha, ha! You may be right. The pain of parting would
no doubt be most severe, , .

After lunch, Arthur lay down to rest. I took his trunks in
a taxi to the Lehrter Station and deposited them in the cloak-
room. Arthur was anxious to avoid a lengthy ceremony of
departure from the house. The tall detective was on duty
now. He watched the loading of the taxi with interest, but
made no move to follow.

At tea, Arthur was nervous and depressed. We sat to-
gether in the disordered bedroom, with the doors of the

173

empty cupboards standing open and the mattress rolled up
at the foot of the bed. I felt apprehensive, for no reason.
Arthur rubbed his chin wearily, and sighed:

“I feel like the Old Year, William. I shall soon be gone.”

I smiled. “A week from now, youll be sitting on the deck
in the sun, while weYe still freezing or soaking in this
wretched town. I envy you, I can tell you.”

“Do you, dear boy? I sometimes wish I didn’t have to do
so much ti*avelling. Mine is essentially a domestic nature. I
ask nothing better than to settle down.”

“Well, why don’t you, then?”

“That’s what I so often ask myself . . . Something always
seems to prevent it.”

At last it was time to go.

With infinite fuss, Arthur put on his coat, lost and found
his gloves, gave a last touch to his wig. I picked up liis suit-
case and we went out into the hall. Nothing was left but the
worst, the ordeal of saying good-bye to Frl. Schroeder. She
emerged from the living-room, moist-eyed.

“Well, Herr Norris . . .”

The door-bell rang loudly, and there was a double knock
on the door. The interruption made x\rthur jump.

“Good gracious! Whoever can that be?”

“It’s the postman, I expect,” said Frl. Schroeder. “Excuse
me, Herr Bradshaw. . . .”

Barely had she opened the door when the man outside it
pushed past her into the hall. It was Schmidt.

That he was drunk was obvious, even before he opened
his mouth. He stood swajnng uncertainly, hatless, his tie
over one shoulder, his collar awry. His huge face was in-
flamed and swollen so that his eyes were mere slits. The hall
w^as a small place for four people. We were standing so close
together that I could smell his breath. It stank vilely,

Arthur, at my side, uttered an incoherent sound of dismay,
and I myself could only gape. Strange as it may seem, I was
entirely unprepared for this apparition. During the last

174

twenty-four hours, I had forgotten Schmidts existence al-
togetlier.

He was tlie master of the situation, and he knew it. His
face fairly beamed with malice. Kicking the front door shut
behind him with his foot, he surveyed the two of us; Ar-
thurs coat, the suitcase in my hand.

“Doing a bunk, eh?” He spoke loudly, as if addressing a
large audience in the middle distance. “I see . . . thought
you’d give me the slip, did you?” He advanced a pace; he
confronted the trembling and dismayed Arthur. “Lucky I
came, wasn’t it? Unlucky for you . . .”

Arthur emitted another sound, this time a kind of squeak
of terror. It seemed to excite Schmidt to a positive frenzy of
rage. He clenched his fists, he shouted with astonisi^g
violence:

“You dirty tyke!”

He raised his arm. He may actually have been going to
strike Arthur; if so, I shouldn’t have had time to prevent it.
All I could do, within the instant, was to drop the suitcase to
the ground. But Frl. Schroeder’s reactions were quicker and
more effective. She hadn’t the ghost of an idea what the
fuss was all about. That didn’t worry her. Enough that Herr
Norris was being insulted by an unknown, drunken man.
With a shrill battle-cry of indignation, she charged. Her
outstretched palms caught Schmidt in the small of the back,
propelled him forwards, like an engine shunting trucks.
Unsteady on his feet and taken completely by surprise, he
blundered headlong through the open doorway into the
living-room and fell sprawling, face downwards, on the
carpet. Frl. Schroeder promptly turned the key in the lock.
The whole manoeuvre was the work of about five seconds.

“Such cheek!” exclaimed Frl. Schroeder. Her cheeks were
bright red with the exertion. “He comes barging in here as
if 3ie place belonged to him. And intoxicated . . . pfui!
. . . the disgusting pig!”

She seemed to find nothing particularly mysterious in the

175

incident. Perhaps she connected Schmidt somehow with
Margot and the ill-fated baby. If so she was too tactful to
say so. A tremendous rattle of knocks on the living-room door
excused me from any attempt at inventing explanations.

“Won’t he be able to get out at the back?” Artiiur inquired
nerv^ously.

“You can set your mind at rest, Herr Norris. The kitchen
door’s locked.” Frl. Schroeder turned menacingly upon the
invisible Schmidt. “Be quiet, you scoundrel! I’ll attend to you
in a minute!”

“All the same . . Arthur was on pins and needles, “I
think we ought to be going . . .”

“How are you going to get rid of him?” I asked Frl.
Schroeder.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, Herr Bradshaw. As soon
as you’re gone, I’ll get the porter’s son up. He’ll go quietly
enough, I promise you. If he doesn’t, hell be sorry. . .

We said good-bye hurriedly. Frl. Schroeder was too
excited and triumphant to be emotional. Arthur kissed her on
both cheeks. She stood waving to us from the top of the
stairs. A fresh outburst of muffled knocking was aufflble be-
hind her.

We were in the taxi, and half-way to the station before
Arthur recovered his composure sufficiently to be able to talk.

“Dear me . . . I’ve seldom made such an exceedingly un-
pleasant exit from any town, I think . .

“What you might call a rousing send-off ” I glanced be-
hind me to make sure that the otiier taxi, with the tall de-
tective, was stiU following us.

‘WTiat do you think he’ll do, William? Perhaps he’ll go
straight to the police?”

“I’m pre^' sure he won’t. As lon^ as he’s drunk, they won’t
listen to him, and by the time he’s sober, hell see himself
that it’s no good. He hasn’t the least idea where you’re going,
either. For ah he knows, you’ll be out of the country to-night.”

“You may be right, dear boy. I hope so. I’m sure. I must

176

say I hate to leave you exposed to his malice. You will be
most careful, won’t you?”

“Oh, Schmidt won’t bother me. Tm not worth it, from his
point of view. Hell probably find another victim easily
enough. I dare say he’s got plenty on his books.”

“While he was in my employ he certainly had oppor-
tunities,” Arthur agreed thoughtfully. “And I’ve no doubt he
made full use of diem. The creature had talents — of a per-
verted kind . . . Oh, unquestionably . . . Yes. . .

At length it was all over. The misunderstanding with the
cloak-room official, the fuss about the luggage, the finding
of a corner seat, the giving of the tip. Arthur leant out of the
carriage window; I stood on the platform. We had five min-
utes to spare.

‘Y'ou’ll remember me to Otto, won’t you?”

“I will.”

“And give my love to Anni?”

“Of course.”

“I wish they could have been here.”

“It’s a pity, isn’t it?”

“But it would have been unwise, under the circumstances.
Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.”

I longed for the train to start. There was nothing more to
say, it seemed, except the things which must never be said
now, because it was too late. Arthur seemed aware of the
vacuum. He groped about uneasily in his stock of phrases.

“I wish you were coming with me, William ... I shall
miss you terribly, you know.”

“Shall you?” I smiled awkwardly, feeling exquisitely un-
comfortable.

“I shall, indeed. . . . You’ve always been such a support
to me. From the first moment we met. . .

I blushed. It was astonishing what a cad he could make me
feel. Hadn’t I, after all, misunderstood him? Hadn’t I mis-
judged him? Hadn’t I, in some obscure way, behaved veiy
badly? To change the subject, I asked;

177

"You remember that journey? I simply couldn’t under-
stand why they made such a fuss at the frontier. I suppose
they’d got their eye on you already?’"

Arthur didn’t care much for this reminiscence.

"I suppose they had. . . . Yes.”

Another silence. I glanced at the clock, despairingly. One
more minute to go. Fumblingly, he began again.

“Try not to think too hardly of me, William. ... I should
hate that. . . .”

“What nonsense, Arthur ...” I did my best .to pass it off
lightly. “How absurd you are!”

“Thds life is so very complex. If my behaviour hasn’t al-
ways been quite consistent, I can truly say that I am and
always shall be loyal to the Party, at heart. . . . Say you
believe that, please?”

He was outrageous, grotesque, entirely without shame.
But what was I to answer? At that moment, had he de-
manded it. I’d have sworn that two and two make five.

“Yes, Arthur, I do believe it.”

“Thank you, William. . . . Oh dear, now we really are
off. I do hope all my trunks are in the van. God bless you,
dear boy. I shall think of you always. Where’s my mackin-
tosh? Ah, that’s all right. Is my hat on straight? Good-bye.
Write often, won’t you. Good-bye/’

“Good-bye, Arthur,”

The train, gathering speed, drew his manicured hand from
mine. I walked a little way down the platform and stood
waving until the last coach was out of sight.

As I turned to leave the station, I nearly collided with a
man who had been standing just behind me. It was the de-
tective.

“Excuse me, Herr KommissarJ" 1 murmured.

But he did not even smile.

178

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Early in March, after the elections, it turned suddenly mild
and warm. “Hitler s weather,” said the porter s wife; and her
son remarked jokingly that we ought to be grateful to van
der Lubbe, because the burning of the Reichstag had melted
the snow. “Such a nice-looking boy,” observed Fri. Schroeder,
with a sigh. “However could he go and do a dreadful thing
like that?” The porter s wife snorted.

Our street looked quite gay when you turned into it and
saw the black-white-red flags hanging motionless from win-
dows against the blue spring sky. On the Nollendorfplatz
people were sitting out of doors before the cafe in their
overcoats, reading about the coup detat in Bavaria. Goring
spoke from the radio horn at the comer. Germany is awake,
he said. An ice-cream shop was open. Uniformed Nazis strode
hither and thither, with serious, set faces, as though on
weighty errands. The newspaper readers by the cafe turned
their heads to watch them pass and smiled and seemed
pleased.

They smiled approvingly at these youngsters in their big,
swaggering boots who were going to upset the Treaty of
Versailles. They were pleased because it would soon be sum-
mer, because Hitler had promised to protect the small trades-
men, because their newspapers told them that the good times
were coming. They were suddenly proud of being blond.
And they thrilled with a furtive, sensual pleasure, like school-
boys, because the Jews, their business rivals, and the Marxists,
a vaguely defined minority of people who didn't concern
them, had been satisfactorily found guilty of the defeat and
the inflation, and were going to catch it

!79

The town was full of whispers. They told of illegal mid-
night arrests, of prisoners tortured in the S.A. barracks, made
to spit on Lenin s picture, swallow castor-oil, eat old socks.
They were drowned by the loud, angry voice of the Gov-
ernment, contradicting through its thousand mouths. But
not even Goring could silence Helen Pratt. She had decided
to investigate the atrocities on her own account. Morning,
noon and night, she nosed round the city, ferreting out the
victims or their relations, crossexamining them for details.
These unfortunate people were reticent, of course, and
deadly scared. They dicrn’t want a second dose. But Helen
was as relentless as their torturers. She bribed, cajoled, pes-
tered. Sometimes, losing her patience, she threatened. What
would happen to them afterwards frankly didn’t interest her.
She was out to get facts.

It was Helen who first told me that Bayer was dead. She
had absolutely reliable evidence. One of the oflBce staff, since
released, had seen his corpse in the Spandau barracks. “It’s
a funny thing,” she added, “his left ear was torn right off
. . . God knows why. It’s my belief that some of this gang
are simply loonies. Why, Bill, what’s the matter? You’re
going green round the gills.”

“That’s how I feel,” I said.

An awkward thing had happened to Fritz Wendel. A few
days before, he had had a motor accident; he had sprained
his wrist and scratched the skin off his cheek. The injuries
weren’t at aU serious, but he had to wear a big piece of
sticking-plaster and carry his arm in a sling. And now, in
spite of the lovely weather, he wouldn’t venture out of doors.
Bandages of any kind gave rise to misunderstandings, espe-
cially when, like Fritz, you had a dark complexion and coal-
black hair. Passers-by made unpleasant and threatening re-
marks. Fritz wouldn’t admit this, of course. “Hell, what I
mean, one feels such a dam’ fool.” He had become exceed-
ingly cautious. He wouldn’t refer to politics at all, even when

180

we were alone together. “Eventually it had to happen/’ was
his only comment on the new regime. As he said this, he
avoided my eyes.

The whole city lay under an epidemic of discreet, infec-
tious fear. I could feel it, like influenza, in my bones. When
the first news of the house-searchings began to come in, I
had consulted with Frl. Schroeder about the papers which
Bayer had given me. We hid them and my copy of the Com-
munist Manifesto under the wood-pile in the kitchen. Un-
building and rebuilding the wood-pile took half an hour,
and before it was finished our precautions had begun to
seem rather childish. I felt a bit ashamed of myself, and
consequently exaggerated the importance and danger of my
position to Frl. Schroeder, who listened respectfully, with
rising indignation. “You mean to say they’d come into my
flat, Herr Bradshaw? Well, of all the cheek. But just let them
try it! Why, I’d box their ears for them; I declare I would!”

A night or two after this, I was woken by a tremendous
banging on the outside door. I sat up in bed and switched on
the light. It was just three o’clock. Now I’m for it, I thought.
I wondered if they’d allow me to ring up the Embassy.
Smoothing my hair tidy with my hand, I tried, not very suc-
cessfully, to assume an expression of haughty contempt. But
when, at last, Frl. Schroeder had shuffled out to see what
was the matter, it was only a lodger from next door who’d
come to the wrong flat because he was drunk.

After this scare, I suffered from sleeplessness. I kept fancy-
ing I heard heavy wagons drawing up outside our house. I
lay waiting in the dark for the ringing of the door-bell. A
minute. Five minutes. Ten. One morning, as I stared, half
asleep, at the wallpaper above my bed, the pattern suddenly
formed itself into a chain of little hooked crosses. What was
worse, I noticed that everything in the room was really a
kind of brown: either green-brown, black-brown, yellow-
brown, or red-brown; but all brown, unmistakably. When
I had had breakfast and taken a purgative, I felt "better.

181

One morning, I had a visit from Otto,

It must have been about half -past six when he rang our
bell. Frl. Schroeder wasn t up yet; I let him in myself. He
was in a filthy state, his hair tousled and matted, a stain of
dirty blood down the side of his face from a scratch on the
temples.

‘‘Servus, WilliJ* he muttered. He put out his hand sud-
denly and clutched my arm. With diSBculty, I saved him
from falling. But he wasn*t drunk, as I at first imagined;
simply exhausted. He flopped down into a chair in my room.
When I returned from shutting the outside door, he was al-
ready asleep.

It was rather a problem to know what to do with him. I
had a pupil coming early. Finally, Frl. Schroeder and I
managed, between us, to lug him, still half asleep, into Ar-
thur s old bedroom and lay him on the bed. He was in-
credibly heavy. No sooner was he laid on his back than he be-
gan to snore. His snores were so loud that you could hear
tibem in my room, even when the door was shut; they con-
tinued, audibly, throughout the lesson. Meanwhile, my pupil,
a very nice young man who hoped soon to become a school-
master, was eagerly adjuring me not to believe the stories,
“invented by Jewish emigrants,” about the political persecu-
tion.

“Actually,” he assured me, “these so-called communists are
merely a handful of criminals, the scum of the streets. And
most of them are not Germans at all.”

“I thought,” I said politely, “that you were telling me just
now that they drew up the Weimar Constitution?”

This rather staggered him for the moment; but he made
a good recovery.

“No, pardon me, the Weimar Constitution was the work of
Marxist Jews.”

“Ah, the Jews ... to be sure.”

My pupil smiled. My stupidity made him feel a bit su-
perior. I think he even liked me for it. A particularly loud
snore came from the next room.

1S2

"For a foreigner he politely conceded, "German politics
are very compHcated

"Very ” I agreed.

Otto woke about tea-time, ravenously hungry. I went out
and bought sausages and eggs and Frl. Schroeder cooked
him a meal while he washed. Afterwards we sat together in
my room. Otto smoked one cigarette after another; he was
very nervy and couldn’t sit still. His clothes were getting
ragged and the collar of his sweater was frayed. His face
was full of hollows. He looked like a grown man now, at
least five years older.

Frl. Schroeder made him take off his jacket. She mended
it while we talked, interjecting, at interv’als: “Is it possible?
The idea . . . how dare they do such a thing! That’s what
I’d like to know!”

Otto had been on the run for a fortnight, now, he told us.
Two nights after the Reichstag fire, his old enemy, Werner
Baldow, had come round, with six others of his storm-troop,
to “arrest” him. Otto used the word without irony; he seemed
to find it quite natural. “There’s lots of old scores being paid
off nowadays,” he added, simply.

Nevertheless, Otto had escaped, through a skylight, after
kicking one of the Nazis in the face. They had shot at him
twice, but missed. Since then he’d been wandering about
Berlin, sleeping only in the daytime, walking the streets at
night, for fear of house-raids. The first week hadn’t been so
bad; comrades had put him up, one passing him on to an-
other. But that was getting too risky now. So many of them
were dead or in the concentration camps. He’d been sleeping
when he could, taking short naps on benches in parks. But
he could never rest properly. He had always to be on the
watch. He couldn’t stick it any longer. To-morrow he was
going to leave Berlin. He’d try to work his way down to the
Saar. Somebody had told him that was the easiest frontier
to cross. It was dangerous, of course, but better than being
cooped up here.

I asked what had become of Ann!. Otto didn’t know. He’d

183

heard she was with Werner Baldow again. What else could
you expect? He wasn’t even bitter; he just didn’t care. And
Olga? Oh, Olga was doing finely. That remarkable business
woman had escaped the clean-up through the influence of
one of her customers, an important Nazi official. Others had
begun to go there, now. Her future was assured.

Otto had heard about Bayer.

‘They say Thalmann’s dead, too. And Renn. Junge,
Junge, . .

We exchanged rumours about other well-known names.
Frl. Schroeder shook her head and murmured over each. She
was so genuinely upset that nobody would have dreamed
she was hearing most of them for the first time in her life.

The talk turned naturally to Arthur. We showed Otto the
postcards of Tampico which had arrived, for both of us,
only a week ago. He examined them with admiration.

‘T suppose he’s carrying on the work there?”

“What work?”

“The Party work, of coursel”

“Oh, yes,” I hastily agreed. “Of course he is.”

“It was a bit of luck that he went away when he did, washt

itr

“Yes . , . it certainly was.”

Otto’s eyes shone.

“We needed more men like old Arthur in the Party. He
was a speaker, if you like!”

His enthusiasm warmed Frl. Schroeder’s heart. The tears
stood in her eyes.

“I always shall say Herr Norris was one of the best and
finest and straightest gentlemen I ever knew.”

We were all silent. In the twilit room we dedicated a
grateful, reverent moment to Arthur’s memory. Then Otto
continued in a tone of profound conviction:

“Do you know what I think? He’s working for us out there,
making propaganda and raising money; and one day, you’ll
see, hell come back. Hitler and the rest of them viffil have
to look out for themselves then. . .

184

It was getting dark outside. Frl. Schroeder rose to turn
on the light. Otto said he must be going. He'd decided to
make a start this evening now that he was feeling rested. By
daybreak, he'd be clear of Berlin altogether. Frl. Schroeder
protested vigorously. She had taken a great fancy to him.

""Nonsense, Herr Otto. You'll sleep here to-night. You need
a thorough rest. Those Nazis will never find you here. They'd
have to cut me into little pieces first."

Otto smiled and thanked her warmly, but he wasn't to be
persuaded. We had to let him go. Frl. Schroeder filled his
pockets with sandwiches. I gave him three handkerchiefs, an
old penknife, and a map of Germany printed on a postcard
which had been slipped in through our letter-box to advertise
a firm of bicycle makers. Even this would be better than
nothing, for Otto's geography was alarmingly weak. Un-
guided, he would probably have found himself heading for
Poland. I wanted to give him some money, too. At first he
wouldn't hear of it, and I had to resort to the disingenuous
argument that we were brother communists. ""Besides," I
added craftily, ""you can pay me back." We shook hands
solemnly on this.

He was astonishingly cheerful at parting. From his manner
you would have supposed that it was we who needed en-
couragement, not he.

""Cheer up, Willi. Don't you worry . . . Our time will
come."

""Of course it will. Good-bye, Otto. Good luck."

""Good-bye."

We watched him set off, from my window. Frl. Schroeder
had begun to sniff.

""Poor boy . . . Do you think he's got a chance, Herr
Bradshaw? I declare I shan't sleep the whole night, thinking
about him. It's as if he were my own son.”

Otto turned once to look back; he waved his hand jauntily
and smiled. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets,
hunched his shoulders and strode rapidly away, with the
heavy, agile gait of a boxer, down the long dark street and

185

into the lighted square, to be lost amidst the sauntering
crowds of his enemies.

I never saw or heard of him again.

Three weeks later I returned to England.

I had been in London nearly a month, when Helen Pratt
came round to see me. She had arrived back from Berlin the
day before, having triumphantly succeeded, with a series of
scalding articles, in getting the sale of her periodical forbid-
den throughout Germany. Already she’d been offered a much
better job in America. She was sailing within a fortnight to
attack New York.

She exuded vitality, success and news. The Nazi Revolu-
tion had positively given her a new lease of life. To hear her
talk, you might have thought she had spent the last two
months hiding in Dr, Goebbels’ writing-desk or under Hit-
ler s bed. She had the details of every private conversation
and the low-down on every scandal. She knew what Schacht
had said to Norman, what von Papen had said to Meissner,
what Schleicher might shortly be expected to say to the
Crown Prince. She knew the amounts of Thyssen’s cheques.
She had new stories about Roehm, about Heines, about
Goring and his uniforms. “My God, Bill, what a racket!” She
talked for hours.

Exhausted at last of all the misdeeds of the great, she
started on the lesser fry.

“I suppose you heard all about the Pregnitz affair, didn’t
you?”

“No. Not a word.”

“Gosh, you are behind the times!” Helen brightened at the
prospect of yet another story. “Why, that can’t have been
more than a week after you left. They kept it fairly quiet, of
course, in the papers. A pal of mine on the New York Herald
gave me all the dope.”

But, on this occasion, the dope wasn’t all on Helen’s side.
Naturally, she didn’t know everything about van Hoorn. The
temptation to fill out tiie gaps in her story, or, at least, to be-

186

tray my knowledge of them, was considerable. Thank good-
ness, I didn’t yield to it. She was no more to be trusted with
news than a cat with a saucer of milk. And, indeed, I was
astonished how much her resourceful colleague had found
out on his own account.

The police must have been keeping Kuno under observa-
tion ever since our Swiss visit. Their patience had certainly
been remarkable, because, for three whole months, he had
done absolutely nothing to arouse their suspicions. Then,
quite suddenly, at the beginning of April, he had got into
communication with Paris. He was ready, he said, to re-
consider the business they had discussed. His first letter was
short and carefully vague; a week later, under pressure from
van Hoorn, he wrote a much longer one, giving explicit de-
tails of what he proposed to sell. He sent it by special mes-
senger, taking all due precautions and employing a code.
Within a few hours, the police had deciphered every word.

They went round to arrest him that afternoon at his flat.
Kuno was out, having tea with a friend. His manservant had
just time to telephone to him a guarded warning, before the
detectives took possession. Kuno seems to have lost his head
completely. He did the worst thing possible: jumped into a
taxi and drove straight to the Zoo Station. The plain-clothes
men there recognized him at once. They’d been supplied with
his description that very morning, and who could mistake
Kuno? Cruelly enough, they let him buy a ticket for the
next available train; it happened to be going to Frankfurt-
on-the-Oder. As he went up the steps to the platform, two
detectives came forward to arrest him; but he was ready for
that, and bolted down again. The exits were all guarded, of
course. Kuno’s pursuers lost him in the crowd; caught sight
of him again as he ran through the swing doors into the
lavatory. By the time they had elbowed their way through
the people, he had already locked himself into one of the
closets. ("The newspapers” said Helen, scornfully, "called
it a telephone-box.”) The detectives ordered him to come
out He wouldn’t answer. Finally, they had to clear the

187

whole place and get ready to break down the door. It was
then that Kuno shot himself.

‘^And he couldn’t even make a decent job of that,” Helen
added. ""Fired crooked. Nearly blew his eye out; bled like a
pig. They had to take him to hospital to finish him off.”

""Poor devil.”

Helen looked at me curiously.

""Good riddance to bad rubbish, I should have said.”

""You see,” I apologetically confessed, ""I knew him,
slightly . . .”

"'Well, I’m Mowed! Did you? Sorry. I must say. Bill, you’re
a nice little chap, but you do have some queer friends. Well,
this ought to interest you, then. You knew Pregnitz was a
fairy, of course?”

""I rather guessed something of the kind.”

“Well, my pal got on to the inside story of why Pregnitz
went in for this treason racket at all. He needed cash quickly,
you see, because he was being blackmailed. And who, do you
think, was doing the blackmailing? None other than the
secretary of anoQier dear old friend of yours, Harris.”

“Norris?”

""That’s right. Well, it seems that this precious secretary
. . . what was his name, by the way?”

‘"Schmidt.”

“Was it? I dare say. Just suits him. . . . Schmidt had got
hold of a lot of letters Pregnitz had written to some youth.
God alone knows how. Pretty hot stuff they must have been,
if Pregnitz was prepared to risk his skin to pay for them.
Shouldn’t have thought it was worth it myself. Rather face
the music. But these people never have any guts. . .

“Did your friend find out what happened to Schmidt after-
wards?” I asked.

“Don’t suppose so, no. Why should he? What does happen
to these creatures? He’s probably abroad, somewhere, blow-
ing the cash. He’ d got quite a lot out of Pregnitz, already, it
seems. As far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to it.
cares?”

188

T know one person ” I said, “who might be interested ”

A few days after this, I got a letter from Arthur, He was in
Mexico City now, and hating it.

Let me advise you, my dear boy, with all the solenmity
of which I am capable, never to set foot in this odious
town. On the material plane, it is true, I manage to pro-
vide myself with most of my accustomed comforts. But
the complete lack of intelligent society, at least, as I
understand the term, afflicts me deeply . . .

Arthur didn’t say much about his business afiFairs; he was
more guarded than of old.

“Times are very bad, but, on the whole, I can t complain,”
was his only admission. On the subject of Germany, he let
himself go, however:

It makes me positively tremble with indignation to
think of the workers delivered over to these men, who,
whatever you may say, are nothing more or less than
criminals.

And, a little farther down the page:

It is indeed tragic to see how, even in these days, a
clever and unscrupulous liar can deceive millions.

In conclusion, he paid a handsome tribute to Bayer:

A man I always admired and respected. I feel proud to
be able to say that I was his friend.

I next heard of Arthur in June, on a postcard from Cali-
fornia.

I am basking here in the sunshine of Santa Monica.
After Mexico, this is indeed a Paradise. I have a little
ventare on foot, not unconnected with the film industry.

I think and hope it may turn out quite profitably. WiD
write again soon.

189

He did write, and sooner, no doubt, than he had originally
intended. By the next mail, I got another postcard, dated a
day later.

The very worst has happened. Am leaving for Costa
Rica tonight. All details from there.

This time I got a short letter.

If Mexico was Purgatory, this is the Inferno itself.

My Californian idyll was rudely cut short by the ap-
pearance of SchmidtI!! The creature's ingenuity is posi-
tively superhuman. Not only had he followed me there,
but he had succeeded in finding out the exact nature of
the little deal I was hoping to put through. I was entirely
at his mercy. I was compelled to give him most of my
hard-earned savings and depart at once.

Just imagine, he even had the insolence to suggest
that I should employ him, as before!!

I don't know yet whether 1 have succeeded in throw-
ing him oflF my track. I hardly dare to hope.

At least, Arthur wasn't left long in doubt. A postcard soon
followed the letter.

The Monster has arrived!!! May try Peru.

Other glimpses of this queer journey reached me from
time to time. Arthur had no luck in Lima. Schmidt turned up
within the week. From there, the chase proceeded to Chile.

‘‘An attempt to exterminate the reptile failed miserably,"
he wrote from Valparaiso. “I succeeded only in arousing its
venom."

I suppose this is Arthur s ornate way of saying that he had
tried to get Schmidt murdered.

In Valparaiso, a truce seems, however, to have been at
last declared. For the next postcard, announcing a train
foumey to the Argentine, indicated a new state of affairs;

190

We leave this afternoon, together ^ for Buenos Aires.

Am too depressed to write more now.

At present, they are in Rio. Or were when I last heard. It
is impossible to predict their movements. Any day Schmidt
may set oflF for fresh hunting-grounds, dragging Arthur after
him, a protesting employer-prisoner. Their new partnership
won’t be so easy to dissolve as their old one. Henceforward,
they are doomed to walk the Earth together. I often think
about them and wonder what I should do if, by any unlucky
chance, we were to meet. I am not particularly sorry for
Arthur. After all, he no doubt gets his hands on a good deal
of money. But he is very sorry for himself.

“Tell me, William,” his last letter concluded, **v)hat have
I done to deserve all this?”

THE END

191

GOODBYE TO BERLIN

to

John & Beatrix Lehmann

A BERLIN DIARY
(Autumn 1930)

From my window, the deep solemn massive street Cellar-
shops where the lamps bum aU day, under the shadow of
top-heavy balconied facades, dirty plaster frontages em-
bossed with scrollwork and heraldic devices. The whole dis-
trict is like this: street leading into street of houses like
shabby monumental safes crammed with the tarnished valu-
ables and second-hand furniture of a bankmpt middle class.

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, re-
cording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the
window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her
hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully
printed, fixed.

At eight o’clock in the evening the house-doors will be
locked. The children are having supper. The shops are shut.
The electric-sign is switched on over the night-bell of the
little hotel on the comer, where you can hire a room by the
hour. And soon the whistling ^1 begin. Young men are
calling their girls. Standing down there in the cold, they
whistle up at the lighted windows of warm rooms where
the beds are already turned down for the night They want
to be let in. Their signals echo down the deep hollow street,
lascivious and private and sad. Because of the whistling, I
do not care to stay here in the evenings. It reminds me that
I am in a foreign city, alone, far from home. Sometimes I
determine not to listen to it, pick up a book, tiy to read.
But soon a call is sure to sound, so piercing, so insistent, so
despairingly human, that at last I have to get up and peep
through the slats of the Venetian blind to make quite sure

I

that it is not — ^as I know very well it could not possibly be —
for me.

The extraordinary smell in this room when the stove is
Kghted and the window shut; not altogether unpleasant, a
mixture of incense and stale buns. The tall tiled stove, gor-
geously coloured, like an altar. The washstand like a Gothic
shrine. The cupboard also is Gothic, with carved cathedral
windows: Bismarck faces the King of Prussia in stained glass.
My best chair would do for a bishop’s throne. In the comer,
three sham medieval halberds (from a theatrical touring
company?) are fastened together to form a hatstand. Frl,
Schroeder unscrews the heads of the halberds and polishes
them from time to time. They are heavy and sharp enough
to kill.

Everything in the room is like that: unnecessarily solid,
abnormally heavy and dangerously sharp. Here, at the
writing-table, I am confronted by a phalanx of metal ob-
jects — a pair of candlesticks shaped like entwined serpents,
an ashtray from which emerges the head of a crocodile, a
paper-knife copied from a Florentine dagger, a brass dolphin
holding on the end of its tail a small broken clock. What be-
comes of such things? How could they ever be destroyed?
They will probably remain intact for thousands of years:
people will treasure them in museums. Or perhaps they will
merely be melted down for munitions in a war. Every morn-
ing, Frl. Schroeder arranges them very carefully in certain
unvarying positions: there they stand, like an uncompromis-
ing statement of her views on Capital and Society, Religion
and Sex.

All day long she goes padding about the large dingy flat.
Shapeless but alert, she waddles from room to room, in car-
pet slippers and a flowered dressing-gown pinned ingeniously
together, so that not an inch of petticoat or bodice is to be
seen, flicking vwth her duster, peeping, spying, poking her
diort points nose into the cupboards and luggage of her

2

lodgers. She has dark, bright, inquisitive eyes and pretty
waved brown hair of which she is proud. She must be about
fifty-five years old.

Long ago, before the War and the Inflation, she used to
be comparatively well off. She went to the Baltic for her
summer holidays and kept a maid to do the housework. For
the last thirty years she has lived here and taken in lodgers.
She started doing it because she liked to have company.

" ‘Lina,’ my friends used to say to me, ‘however can you?
How can you bear to have strange people living in your rooms
and spoiling your furniture, especially when you’ve got the
money to be independent?’ And I’d always give them the
same answer. "My lodgers aren’t lodgers,’ I used to say.
TThey’re my guests.’

“You see, Herr Issyvoo, in those days I could afford to be
very particular about the sort of people who came to live
here. I could pick and choose. I only took tliem really well
connected and well educated — ^proper gentlefolk (like your-
self, Herr Issyvoo). I had a Freiherr once, and a Rittmeister
and a Professor. They often gave me presents — a bottle of
cognac or a box of chocolates or some flowers. And w’hen one
of them went away for his holidays he’d always send me a
card — from London, it might be, or Paris, or Baden-Baden.
Ever such pretty cards I used to get. . . .”

And now Frl. Schroeder has not even got a room of her
own. She has to sleep in the living-room, behind a screen, on
a small sofa vdth broken springs. As in so many of the older
Berlin flats, our living-room connects the front part of the
house with the back. The lodgers who live on the front have
to pass through the living-room on their way to the bath-
room, so that Frl. Schroeder is often disturbed during the
night. “But I drop off again at once. It doesn’t worry me.
I’m much too tired.” She has to do all the housework herself
and it takes up most of her day. “Twenty years ago, if any-
body had told me to scrub my own floors. I’d have slapped
his face for him. But you get used to it. You can get used to
anything. Why, I remember the time when I’d have sooner

3

cut off my right hand than empty this chamber. , . . And
now,” says Frl. Schroeder, suiting the action to the word,
‘^my goodness! It s no more to me than pouring out a cup of
tea!”

She is fond of pointing out to me the various marks and
stains left by lodgers who have inhabited this room:

“Yes, Herr Issyvoo, I've got something to remember each
of them by. . . . Look there, on the rug — IVe sent it to the
cleaners I don’t know how often but nothing will get it out
— ^that’s where Herr Noeske was sick after his birthday party.
What in the world can he have been eating, to make a mess
like that? He’d come to Berlin to study, you know. His par-
ents lived in Brandenburg — a first-class family; oh, I assure
you! They had pots of money! His Herr Papa was a surgeon,
and of course he wanted his boy to follow in his footsteps.
. , . What a charming young man! "Herr Noeske,’ I used to
say to him, ‘excuse me, but you must really work harder —
you with aU your brains! Think of your Herr Papa and your
Frau Mama; it isn’t fair to them to waste their good money
JSke that. Why, if you were to drop it in the Spree it would
be better. At least it would make a splash!’ I was like a mother
to him. And always, when he’d got himself into some scrape
— ^he was terribly thoughtless — ^he’d come straight to me:
"Schroederschen,’ he used to say, ‘please don’t be angry with
me, . . . We were playing car^ last night and I lost the
whole of this month’s allowance. I daren’t teU Father. . .
And then he’d look at me with those great big eyes of his. I
knew exactly what he was after, the scamp! But I hadn’t the
heart to refuse. So I’d sit down and write a letter to his Frau
Mama and beg her to forgive him just that once and send
some more money. And she always would. ... Of course,
as a woman, I knew how to appeal to a mother s feelings,
although I’ve never had any children of my own. . . . What
are you smiling at, Herr Issyvoo? Well, well! Mistakes will
happen, you know!”

4

"And that s where the Herr Rittmeister always upset his
coffee over the wall-paper. He used to sit there on the couch
with his fiancee. ‘Herr Rittmeister/ I used to say to him, ‘do
please drink your coffee at the table. If youll excuse my say-
ing so, there s plenty of time for the other thing after-
wards. . . But no, he always would sit on the couch. And
then, sure enough, when he began to get a bit excited in his
feelings, over went the coffee-cups. . . . Such a handsome
gentleman! His Frau Mama and his sister came to visit us
sometimes. They liked coming up to Berlin. ‘Fraulein Schroe-
der,’ they used to tell me, ‘you don’t know how lucky you are
to be living here, right in the middle of things. We’re only
country cousins — ^we envy you! And now tell us all the latest
Court scandals!’ Of course, they were only joking. They
had the sweetest little house, not far from Halberstadt, in
the Harz. They used to show me pictures of it. A perfect
dream!”

“You see those ink-stains on the carpet? That’s where Herr
Professor Koch used to shake his fountain-pen. I told him of
it a hundred times. In the end, I even laid sheets of blotting-
paper on the floor around his chair. He was so absent-
minded. . . . Such a dear old gentleman! And so simple. I
was very fond of him. If I mended a shirt for him or darned
his socks, he’d thank me with the tears in his eyes. He liked
a bit of fxm, too. Sometimes, when he heard me coming, he’d
turn out the light and hide behind the door; and then he’d
roar like a lion to frighten me. Just like a child. , .

Frl. Schroeder can go on like this, without repeating her-
self, by the hour. When I have been listening to her for some
time, I find myself relapsing into a curious trance-like state
of depression. I begin to feel profoundly unhappy. Where are
all those lodgers now? Where, in another ten years, shall I
be, myself? Certainly not here. How many seas and frontiers
shJl I have to cross to reach that distant day; how far shall
I have to travel, on foot, on horseback, by car, push-bike,
aeroplane, steamer, train, lift, moving-staircase and tram?
How mu<i money shall I need for that enormous journey?

5

How much food must I gradually, wearily consume on my
way? How many pairs of shoes shall I wear out? How many
thousands of cigarettes shall I smoke? How many cups of
tea shall I drink and how many glasses of beer? What an
awful tasteless prospect! And yet — to have to die. ... A
sudden vague pang of apprehension grips my bowels and I
have to excuse myself in order to go to the lavatory.

Hearing that I was once a medical student, she confides
to me that she is very unhappy because of the size of her
bosom. She suffers from palpitations and is sure that these
must be caused by the strain on her heart. She wonders if she
should have an operation. Some of her acquaintances advise
her to, others are against it:

"Oh dear, it’s such a weight to have to carry about with
you! And just think — Herr Issyvoo: I used to be as slim as
you are!”

“I suppose you had a great many admirers, Frl. Schroe-
der?”

Yes, she has had dozens. But only one Friend. He was a
married man, living apart from his wife, who would not
divorce him.

“We were together eleven years. Then he died of pneu-
monia. Sometimes I wake up in the night when it’s cold
and wish he was there. You never seem to get really warm,
sleeping alone.”

There are four other lodgers in this flat. Next door to me,
in the big front-room, is Frl. Kost. In the room opposite, over-
looking the courtyard, is Frl. Mayr. At the back, beyond
the living-room, is Bobby. And behind Bobby’s room, over
the bathroom, at the top of a ladder, is a tiny attic which
Frl, Schroeder refers to, for some occult reason, as “The
Swedish Pavilion,” This she lets, at twenty marks a month,
to a commercial traveller who is out all day and most of
the night. I occasionally come upon him on Sunday mom-

6

ings, in the kitchen, shuffling about in his vest and trousers,
apologetically hunting for a box of matches.

Bobby is a mixer at a west-end bar called the Troika. I
don’t know his real name. He has adopted this one because
English Christian names are fashionable just now in the
Berlin demi-monde. He is a pale worried-looking smartly
dressed young man with thin sleek black hair. During the
early afternoon, just after he has got out of bed, he walks
about the flat in shirt-sleeves, wearing a hairnet

Frl. Schroeder and Bobby are on intimate terms. He tickles
her and slaps her bottom; she hits him over the head with a
frying-pan or a mop. The first time I surprised them scuffling
like this, they were both rather embarrassed. Now they take
my presence as a matter of course.

Frl. Kost is a blonde florid girl with large silly blue eyes.
When we meet, coming to and from the bathroom in our
dressing-gowns, she modestly avoids my glance. She is plump
but has a good figure.

One day I asked Frl. Schroeder straight out: What was
Frl. Kost’s profession?

“Profession? Ha, ha, that’s good! That’s just the word for
it! Oh, yes, she’s got a fine profession. Like this

And with the air of doing something extremely comic, she
began waddling across the kitchen like a duck, mincingly
holding a duster between her finger and thumb. Just by file
door, she twirled triumphantly round, flourishing the duster
as though it were a silk handkerchief, and kissed her hand
to me mockingly:

“Ja, ja, Herr Issyvoo! That’s how they do it!”

“I don’t quite understand, Frl. Schroeder. Do you mean
that she’s a tight-rope walker?”

“He, he, he! Very good indeed, Herr Issjwoo! Yes, that’s
right! That’s it! She walks along the line for her living. That
just describes her!”

One evening, soon after this, I met Frl. Kost on the stairs,
with a Japanese. Frl. Schroeder explained to me later that
he is one of Frl. Kost s best customers. She asked FrL Kost

7

how they spent the time together when not actually in bed,
for the Japanese can speak hardly any German,

“Oh, well,” said Frl. Kost, “we play the gramophone to-
gether, you know, and eat chocolates, and then we laugh a
lot. He’s very fond of laughing. . .

Frl. Schroeder really quite likes Frl. Kost and certainly
hasn’t any moral objections to her trade: nevertheless, when
she is angry because Frl. Kost has broken the spout of the
teapot or omitted to make crosses for her telephone-calls on
the slate in the living-room, then invariably she exclaims:

“But after all, what else can you expect from a woman of
that sort, a common prostitute! Why, Herr Issyvoo, do you
know what she used to be? A servant girl! And then she got
to be on intimate terms with her employer and one fine day,
of course, she found herself in certain circumstances. . . .
And when that little difficulty was removed, she had to go
trot-trot. . .

Frl. Mayr is a music-hall jodlerin — one of the best, so Frl.
Schroeder reverently assures me, in the whole of Germany.
Frl. Schroeder doesn’t altogether like Frl. Mayr, but she
stands in great awe of her; as well she may. Frl. Mayr has a
bull-dog jaw, enormous arms and coarse string-coloured hair.
She speaks a Bavarian dialect with peculiarly aggressive
emphasis. When at home, she sits up like a war-horse at the
living-room table, helping Frl. Schroeder to lay cards. They
are both adept fortune-tellers and neither would dream of
beginning the day without consulting the omens. The chief
thing they both want to know at present is: when will Frl.
Mayr get another engagement? This question interests Frl,
Scln-oeder quite as much as Frl. Mayr, because Frl. Mayr
is behind-hand with the rent.

At the comer of the Motzstrasse, when the weather is fine,
there stands a shabby pop-eyed man beside a portable canvas
booth. On the sides of the booth are pinned astrological dia-
grams and autographed letters of recommendation from sat-
isfied clients. Frl. Schroeder goes to consult him whenever
she can afford the mark for his fee. In fact, he plays a most

8

important part in her life. Her behaviour towards him is a
mixture of cajolery and threats. If the good things he promises
her come true she will kiss him, she says, invite him to dinner,
buy him a gold watch: if they don’t she will throttle him, box
his ears, report him to the police. Among other prophecies,
the astrologer has told her that she will win some money in
the Prussian State Lottery. So far, she has had no luck. But
she is always discussing what she will do with her winnings.
We are all to have presents, of course. I am to get a hat, be-
cause Frl. Schroeder thinks it very improper that a gentleman
of my education should go about without one.

When not engaged in laying cards, Frl. Mayr drinks tea
and lectures Frl. Schroeder on her past theatrical triumphs:

"And the Manager said to me: "Fritzi, Heaven must have
sent you here! My leading lady’s fallen ill. You re to leave for
Copenhagen to-night.’ And what s more, he wouldn’t take no
for an answer. ‘Fritzi,’ he said (he always called me tliat),
‘Fritzi, you aren’t going to let an old friend down?* And so I
went. . . Frl. Mayr sips her tea reminiscently: “A charm-
ing man. And so well-bred.” She smiles: "Familiar . . . but
he always knew how to behave himself.”

Frl. Schroeder nods eagerly, drinking in every word, revel-
ling in it:

"I suppose some of those managers must be cheeky devils?
(Have some more sausage, Frl. Mayr?)”

"(Thank you, Frl. Schroeder; just a little morsel.) Yes,
some of them . . . you wouldn’t believe! But I could always
take care of myself. Even when I was quite a slip of a
girl. ...”

The muscles of Frl. Mayr’s nude fleshy arms ripple un-
appetisingly. She sticks out her chin:

"I’m a Bavarian; and a Bavarian never forgets an injury ”

Coming into the living-room yesterday evening, I found
Frl. Schroeder and Frl. Mayr lying flat on their stomachs
with their ears pressed to the carpet At interv^als, they ex-

9

changed grins of delight or joyfully pinched each other, with
simultaneous exclamations of Ssh!

“Harkl” whispered Frl. Schroeder, ‘Tie^s smashing all the
furniture!”

"He's beating her black and blue!” exclaimed Frl. Mayr, in
raptures.

"Bang! Just listen to that!”

"Ssh! Ssh!”

"Ssh!”

Frl. Schroeder was quite beside herself. When I asked
what was the matter, she clambered to her feet, waddled for-
ward and, taking me round the waist, danced a little waltz
with me: "Herr Issyvoo! Herr Issyvool Herr Issyvool” until
she was breathless.

“But whatever has happened?” I asked.

“Sshl” commanded FrL Mayr from the floor, “Ssh! They've
started again!”

In the flat directly beneath ours lives a certain Frau
Glantemeck. She is a Galician Jewess, in itself a reason why
Frl. Mayr should be her enemy: for Frl. Mayr, needless to
say, is an ardent Nazi. And, quite apart from this, it seems
that Frau Glantemeck and Frl. Mayr once had words on the
stairs about Frl. Mayr s yodelling. Frau Glantemeck, perhaps
because she is a non-Aryan, said that she preferred the
noises made by cats. Thereby, she insulted not merely Frl.
Mayr, but all Bavarian, all German women: and it was Frl,
Mayr s pleasant duty to avenge them.

About a fortnight ago, it became known among the neigh-
bours that Frau Glantemeck, who is sixty years old and as
ugly as a witch, had been advertising in the newspaper for
a husband. What was more, an applicant had already ap-
peared: a widowed butcher from Halle. He had seen Frau
Glantemeck and was nevertheless prepared to marry her.
Here was Frl. Mayr's chance. By roundabout inquiries, she
discovered the butcher s name and address and wrote him
an anonymous letter. Was he aware that Frau Glantemeck
had (a) bugs in her flat, (b) been arrested for fraud and

10

released on the ground that she was insane, (o) leased out
her own bedroom for immoral purposes, and (d) slept in
the bed afterwards without changing the sheets? And now
the butcher had arrived to confront Frau Glantemeck with
the letter. One could hear both of them quite distinctly: the
growling of the enraged Prussian and the shrill screaming
of tire Jewess. Now and then came the thud of a fist against
wood and, occasionally, the crash of glass. The row lasted
over an hour.

This morning we hear that the neighbours have com-
plained to the portress of the disturbance and that Frau
Glantemeck is to be seen with a black eye. The marriage is
off.

The inhabitants of this street know me by sight already.
At the grocer s, people no longer turn their heads on hearing
my English accent as I order a pound of butter. At the street
comer, after dark, the three whores no longer whisper throat-
ily: “Komm, Siisser!” as I pass.

The three whores are all plainly over fifty years old. They
do not attempt to conceal their age. They are not noticeably
rouged or powdered. They wear baggy old fur coats and
longish skirts and matronly hats. I happened to mention them
to Bobby and he explained to me that there is a recognized
demand for the comfortable type of woman- Many middle-
aged men prefer them to girls. They even attract boys in
their 'teens. A boy, explained Bobby, feels shy with a girl of
his own age but not with a woman old enough to be his
mother. Like most barmen, Bobby is a great expert on sexual
questions.

The other evening, I went to call on him during business
hours.

It was still very early, about nine o'clock, when I arrived
at the Troika. The place was much larger and grander than
I had expected. A commissionaire braided like an archduke
regarded my hatless head with suspicion until I spoke to him

11

in English. A smart cloak-room girl insisted on taking my
overcoat, which hides the worst stains on my baggy flannel
trousers. A page-boy, seated on the counter, didn’t rise to
open the inner door. Bobby, to my relief, was at his place
behind a blue and silver bar. I made towards him as towards
an old friend. He greeted me most amiably;

“Good evening, Mr. Isherwood. Very glad to see you here.”

I ordered a beer and settled myself on a stool in the comer.
With my back to the wall, I could survey the whole room.

“Ho’w’s business?” I asked.

Bobby’s care-worn, powdered, night-dweller’s face be-
came grave. He inclined his head towards me, over the bar,
with confidential flattering seriousness:

“Not much good, Mr. Isherwood. The kind of public we
have nowadays . . . you wouldn’t believe it! Why, a year
ago, we’d have turned them away at the door. They order a
beer and think they’ve got the right to sit here the whole
evening.”

Bobfy spoke with extreme bitterness. I began to feel un-
comfortable:

“What’ll you drink?” I asked, guiltily gulping down my
beer; and added, lest there should be any misunderstanding:
“I’d like a whisky and soda.”

Bobby said he’d have one, too.

The room was nearly empty. I looked the few guests over,
trying to see them through Bobby’s disillusioned eyes. There
were three attractive, well-dressed girls sitting at the bar:
the one nearest to me was particularly elegant, she had quite
a cosmopolitan air. But during a lull in the conversation, I
caught fragments of her talk with the other barman. She
spoke broad Berlin dialect. She was tired and bored; her
mouth dropped. A young man approached her and joined in
the discussion; a handsome broad-shouldered boy in a weU-
cut dinner-jacket, who might well have been an English
public-school prefect on holiday.

“Nee, nee,” I heard him say. “Bei mir nichtr He grinned
and made a curt, brutal gesture of the streets.

12

Over in the comer sat a page-boy, talking to the little old
lavatory attendant in his white jacket. The boy said some-
thing, laughed and broke off suddenly into a huge yawn. The
three musicians on their platform were chatting, evidently
unwilhng to begin until they had an audience worth playing
to. At one of the tables, I thought I saw a genuine guest, a
stout man with a moustache. After a moment, however, I
caught his eye, he made me a little bow and I loiew that he
must be the manager.

The door opened. Two men and two women came in. The
women were elderly, had thick legs, cropped hair and costly
evening-gowns. The men were lethargic, pale, probably
Dutch. Here, unmistakably, was Money. In an instant, the
Troika was transformed. The manager, ^e cigarette boy and
the lavatory attendant rose simultaneously to their feet. The
lavatory attendant disappeared. The manager said something
in a furious undertone to the cigarette-boy, who also dis-
appeared. He then advanced, bowing and smiling, to the
guests’ table and shook hands with the two men. The
cigarette-boy reappeared with his tray, followed by a waiter
who hurried forward with the wine-list. Meanwhile, the
three-man orchestra struck up briskly. The girls at the bar
turned on their stools, smiling a not-too-direct invitation. The
gigolos advanced to them as if to complete strangers, bowed
formally and asked, in cultured tones, for the pleasure of a
dance. The page-boy, spruce, discreetly grinning, swaying
from the waist like a flower, crossed the room with his tray
of cigarettes: ^Zigarren! Zigarettenr His voice was mocking,
clear-pitched like an actor’s. And in the same tone, yet more
loudly, mockingly, joyfully, so that we could all hear, the
waiter ordered from Bobby: “Heidsick Monopol!”

With absurd, solicitous gravity, the dancers performed
their intricate evolutions, showing in their every movement
a consciousness of the part they were playing. And the saxo-
phonist, letting his instrument swing loose from the ribbon
around his neck, advanced to the edge of the platform with
his little megaphone:

13

• • •

Sie werden lachen,

Ich lieb’

Meine eigene Frau.

He sang with a knowing leer, including us all in the con-
spiracy, charging his voice with innuendo, rolling his eyes in
an epileptic pantomime of extreme joy. Bobby, suave, sleek,
five years younger, handled the bottle. And meanwhile the
two flaccid gentlemen chatted to each other, probably about
business, without a glance at the night-life they had called
into being; while their women sat silent, looking neglected,
puzzled, uncomfortable and very bored.

Frl. Hippi Bernstein, my first pupil, lives in the Griinewald,
in a house built almost entirely of glass. Most of the richest
Berlin families inhabit the Griinewald. It is diflScult to under-
stand why. Their villas, in all known styles of expensive
ugliness, ranging from the eccentric-rococo folly to the cubist
flat-roofed steel-and-glass box, are crowded together in this
dank, dreary pinewood. Few of them can afford large gar-
dens, for the ground is fabulously dear: their only view is
of their neighbour s backyard, each one protected by a wire
fence and a savage dog. Terror of burglary and revolution has
reduced these miserable people to a state of siege. They have
neither privacy nor sunshine. The district is really a mil-
lionaire’s slum.

When I rang the bell at the garden gate, a young footman
came out with a key from the house, followed by a large
growling Alsatian.

“He wont bite you while Tm here,” the footman reassured
me, grinning.

The hall of the Bernstein’s house has metal-studded doors
and a steamer clock fastened to the wall with bolt-heads.
There are modernist lamps, designed to look like pressure-
gauges, thermometers and switchboard dials. But the furni-
ture doesn’t match the house and its fittings. The place is Hke

14

a power-station which the engineers have tried to make com-
fortable with chairs and tables from an old-fashioned, highly
respectable boarding-house. On the austere metal walls,
hang highly varnished nineteenth-century landscapes in mas-
sive gold frames. Herr Bernstein probably ordered the villa
from a popular avant-garde architect in a moment of reck-
lessness; was horrified at the result and tried to cover it up
as much as possible with the family belongings.

Frl. Hippi is a fat pretty girl, about nineteen years old,
with glossy chestnut hair, good teeth and big cow-eyes. She
has a la2y, jolly, self-indulgent laugh and a well-formed bust.
She speaks schoolgirl English with a slight American accent,
quite nicely, to her own complete satisfaction. She has clearly
no intention of doing any work. When I tried weakly to sug-
gest a plan for our lessons, she kept interrupting to offer me
chocolates, coffee, cigarettes: “Excuse me a minute, there
isn’t some fruit,” she smiled, picking up the receiver of the
house-telephone: “Anna, please bring some oranges.”

When the maid arrived with the oranges, I was forced,
despite my protests, to make a regular meal, with a plate,
knife and fork. This destroyed the last pretence of the
teacher-pupil relationsliip. I felt like a policeman being given
a meal in the kitchen by an attractive cook. Frl. Hippi sat
watching me eat, with her good-natured, lazy smile:

“Tell me, please, why you come to Germany?”

She is inquisitive about me, but only like a cow idly
poking with its head between the bars of a gate. She doesn’t
particularly want the gate to open. I said that I foimd Ger-
many very interesting:

“The political and economic situation,” I improvised au-
thoritatively, in my schoolmaster voice, “is more interesting
in Germany than in any other European country^”

“Except Russia, of course,” I added experimentally.

But Frl. Hippi didn’t react. She just blandly smiled:

“I think it shall be dull for you here? You do not have
many friends in Berlin, no?”

“No. Not many”

15

This seemed to please and amuse her:

"You don t know some nice girls?"'

Here the buzzer of the house-telephone sounded. Lazily
smiling, she picked up tlie receiver, but appeared not to
listen to the tinny voice which issued from it. I could hear
quite distinctly the real voice of Frau Bernstein, Hippi's
mother, speaking from the next room.

“Have you left your red book in here?" repeated Frl. Hippi
mockingly and smiling at me as though this were a joke
which I must share: "No, I don't see it. It must be down in
the study. Ring up Daddy. Yes, he's working there." In dumb
show, she offered me another orange. I shook my head
politely. We both smiled: "Mummy, what have we got for
lunch to-day? Yes? Really? Splendid!”

She hung up the receiver and returned to her cross-
examination:

“Do you not know no nice girls?”

“Any nice girls. ...” I corrected evasively. But Frl. Hippi
merely smiled, waiting for the answ^er to her question.

“Yes. One," I had at length to add, thinking of Frl. Kost.

"Only one?" She raised her eyebrows in comic surprise.
“And tell me please, do you find German girls different than
English girls?"

I blushed. "Do you find German girls ...” I began to
correct her and stopped, realizing just in time that I wasn't
absolutely sure whether one says different from or different
to.

“Do you find German girls different than English girls?”
she repeated, with smiling persistence.

I blushed deeper than ever. "Yes. Very different,” I said
boldly.

“How are they different?”

Mercifully the telephone buzzed again. This was some-
body from the kitchen, to say that lunch would be an hour
earlier than usual. Herr Bernstein was going to the city that
afternoon.

“I am so sorry,” said Frl. Hippi, rising, “but for to-day we

16

must finish. And we shall see us again on Friday? Then
good-bye, Mr. Isherwood. And I thank you very much.”

She fished in her bag and handed me an envelope which
I stuck awkwardly into my pocket and tore open only when
I was out of sight of the Bernsteins’ house. It contained a
five-mark piece. I threw it into the air, missed it, found it
after five minutes’ hunt, buried in sand, and ran all the way to
the tram-stop, singing and kicking stones about the road. I
felt extraordinarily guilty and elated, as though Td success-
fully committed a small theft.

It is a mere waste of time even pretending to teach FrI.
Hippi anything. If she doesn’t know a word, she says it in
German. If I correct her, she repeats it in German. I am glad,
of course, that she’s so lazy and only afraid that Frau Bern-
stein may discover how little progress her daughter is making.
But this is very unlikely. Most rich people, once they have
decided to trust you at all, can be imposed upon to almost any
extent. The only real problem for the private tutor is to get
inside the front-door.

As for Hippi, she seems to enjoy my visits. From something
she said the other day, I gather she boasts to her school
friends that she has got a genuine English teacher. We under-
stand each other very well. I am bribed with fruit not to be
tiresome about the English language: she, for her part, tells
her parents that I am the best teacher she ever had. We gos-
sip in German about the things which interest her. And every
three or four m'nutes, we are interrupted while she plays her
part in the family game of exchanging entirely unimportant
messages over the house-telephone.

Hippi never worries about the future. Like everyone else
in Berlin, she refers continually to the political situation, but
only briefly, with a conventional melancholy, as when one
speaks of religion. It is quite unreal to her. She means to go
to the university, travel about, have a jolly good time and
eventually, of course, many. She already has a great many

17

boy friends. We spend a lot of time talking about them. One
has a wonderful car. Another has an aeroplane. Another has
fought seven duels. Another has discovered a knack of putting
out streetlamps by giving them a smart kick in a certain spot.
One night, on the way back from a dance, Hippi and he put
out all the street-lamps in the neighbourhood.

To-day, lunch was early at the Bernsteins*; so I was invited
to it, instead of giving my ‘lesson.” The whole family was
present; Frau Bernstein, stout and placid; Herr Bernstein,
small and shaky and sly. There was also a younger sister, a
schoolgirl of twelve, very fat. She ate and ate, quite unmoved
by Hippf s jokes and warnings that she’d burst. They all seem
very fond of each other, in their cosy, stuffy way. There was
a little domestic argument, because Herr Bernstein didn’t
want his wife to go shopping in the car that afternoon. Dur-
ing the last few days, there has been a lot of Nazi rioting In
the city.

‘‘You can go in the tram,” said Herr Bernstein. “I will not
have them titirowing stones at my beautiful car.”

“And suppose they throw stones at me?” asked Frau Bern-
stein good-humouredly.

“Ach, what does that matter? If they throw stones at you,
I will buy you a sticking-plaster for your head. It will cost me
only five groschen. But if they throw stones at my car, it wiU
cost me perhaps five hundred marks.”

And so the matter was settled. Herr Bernstein then turned
his attention to me:

“You can’t complain that we treat you badly here, young
man, eh? Not only do we give you a nice dinner, but we pay
for you eating it!”

I saw from Hippi’s expression that this was going a bit far,
even for the Bernstein sense of humour; so I laughed and
said:

“Will you pay me a mark extra for every helping I eat?^

18

This amused Herr Bernstein very much; but he was care-
ful to show that he knew I hadn’t meant it seriously.

During the last week, our household has been plunged into
a terrific row.

It began when Frl. Kost came to Frl. Schroeder and an-
nounced that fifty marks had been stolen from her room. She
was very much upset; especially, she explained, as this was
the money she’d put aside towards the rent and the telephone
bill. The fifty-mark note had been lying in the drawer of the
cupboard, just inside the door of Frl. Kost’s room.

Frl. Schroeder’s immediate suggestion was, not unnatu-
rally, that the money had been stolen by one of Frl. Kost s
customers. Frl. Kost said that this was quite impossible, as
none of them had \isited her during the last three days.
Moreover, she added, her friends were all absolutely above
suspicion. They were well-to-do gentlemen, to whom a
miserable fifty-mark note was a mere bagatelle. This an-
noyed Frl. Schroeder veiy^ much indeed:

“I suppose she’s trying to make out that one of tis did it!
Of all the cheek! Why, Herr Issyvoo, will you believe me, I
could have chopped her into little pieces!”

“Yes, Frl. Schroeder. I’m sure you could.”

Frl. Schroeder then developed the theory that the money
hadn’t been stolen at all and that this was just a trick of Frl.
Kost’s to avoid paying the rent. She hinted so much to Frl.
Kost, who was furious. Frl. Kost said that, in any case, she’d
raise the money in a few days: which she already has. She
also gave notice to leave her room at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, I have discovered, quite by accident, that Frl.
Kost has been having an aflPair with Bobby. As I came in, one
evening, I happened to notice that there was no light in Frl.
Kosts room. You can always see this, because there is a
frosted glass pane in her door to light the hall of the flat
Later, as I lay in bed reading, I heard FrL Kost’s door open

19

and Bobby’s voice, laughing and whispering. After much
creaking of boards and muffled laughter, Bobby tiptoed out
of the flat, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind him.
A moment later, he re-entered with a great deal of noise and
went straight through into the living-room, where I heard
him wishing Frl. Schroeder good-night.

If Frl. Schroeder doesn’t actually Imow of this, she at least
suspects it. This explains her fury against Frl. Kost: for the
truth is, she is terribly jealous. The most grotesque and em-
barrassing incidents have been taking place. One morning,
when I wanted to visit the bathroom, Frl. Kost was using it
already. Frl. Schroeder rushed to the door before I could
stop her and ordered Frl. Kost to come out at once: and
when Frl. Kost naturally didn’t obey, Frl. Schroeder began,
despite my protests, hammering on the door with her fists.
^‘Come out of my bathroom!” she screamed. “Come out this
minute, or I’ll call the police to fetch you out!”

After this she burst into tears. The crying brought on
palpitations. Bobby had to carry her to ihe sofa, gasping
and sobbing. While we were all standing round, rather help-
less, Frl. Mayr appeared in the doorway with a face like a
hangman and said, in a terrible voice, to Frl. Kost: “Think
yourself lucky, my girl, if you haven’t murdered her!” She
then took complete charge of the situation, ordered us all
out of the room and sent me down to the grocer s for a bottle
of Baldrian Drops, When I returned, she was seated beside
the sofa, stroking Frl. Schroeder s hand and murmuring, in
her most tragic tones: “Lina, my poor little child . . . what
have they done to you?”

20

SALLY BOWLES

One afternoon, early in October, I was invited to black
coflcee at Fritz Wendels flat. Fritz always invited you to
*black coffee,” with emphasis on the black. He was ver\' proud
of his coffee. People used to say that it was the strongest in
Berlin.

Fritz himself was dressed in his usual coffee-party costume
— a very thick white yachting sweater and \’ery light blue
flannel trousers. He greeted me with his full-lipped, luscious
smile:

"lo, Chris!”

“Hullo, Fritz. How are you?”

“Fine.” He bent over the coffee-machine, his sleek black
hair unplastering itself from his scalp and falling in richly
scented locks over his eyes. “This darn thing doesn’t go,” he
added.

“How’s business?” I asked.

“Lousy and terrible.” Fritz grinned richly. “Or I pull off a
new deal in the next month or I go as a gigolo ”

“Either . . . or . . . I corrected, from force of profes-
sional habit.

“Tm speaking a lousy English just now,” drawled Fritz,
with great self-satisfaction. “Sally says maybe shell give me
a few lessons.”

‘Who’s SaUy?”

“Why, I forgot. You don’t know Sally. Too bad of me.
Eventually she’s coming around here this afternoon.”

“Is she nice?”

Fritz rolled his naughty black eyes, handing me a rum-
moistened cigarette from his patent tin:

21

*"Mflr-vellous!’’ he drawled. “Eventually I believe I m get-
ting crazy about her.”

“And who is she? What does she do?""

“She"s an English girl, an actress: sings at the Lady Win-
dermere — ^hot stufF, believe me!”

“That doesn’t sound much like an English girl, I must
_ »
say.

“Eventually she’s got a bit of French in her. Her mother
was French.”

A few minutes later, Sally herself arrived.

“Am I terribly late, Fritz darling?”

“Only half of an hour, I suppose,” Fritz drawled, beaming
with proprietaiy pleasure. “May I introduce Mr. Isherwood
— Miss Bowles? Mr. Isherwood is commonly known as Chris.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Fritz is about the only person who’s
ever called me Chris in my life.”

Sally laughed. She was dressed in black silk, with a small
cape over her shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy’s
stuck jauntily on one side of her head:

“Do you mind if I use your telephone, sweet?”

“Sure. Go right ahead,” Fritz caught my eye. “Come into
the other room, Chris. I want to show you something,” He
was evidently longing to hear my first impressions of Sally,
his new acquisition.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t leave me alone with this man!”
she exclaimed. “Or he’ll seduce me down the telephone. He’s
most terribly passionate.”

As she dialled the number, I noticed that her finger-nails
were painted emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen,
for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained
by cigarette-smoking and as dirty as a little girl’s. She was
dark enough to be Fritz’s sister. Her face was long and thin,
powdered dead white. She had very large brown eyes which
should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil
she used for her eyebrow^s.

“Hilloo,” she cooed, pursing her brilliant cherry lips as
though she were going to kiss the mouthpiece: “1st dass Du,

22

mein Liebling?” Her mouth opened in a fatuously sweet
smile. Fritz and I sat watching her, like a performance at the
theatre. "Was wollen wir machen. Morgen Abend? Oh, wie
wunderbar. . . . Nein, nein, ich werde bleiben Heute Abend
zu Hause. Ja, ja, ich werde wirklich bleiben zu Hause. . . .
Auf Wiedersehen, mein Liebling . .

She hung up the receiver and turned to us triumphantly.

"That s the man I slept with last night,” she announced.
"He makes love marvellously. He’s an absolute genius at
business and he’s terribly rich — She came and sat down on
the sofa beside Fritz, sinking back into the cushions with
a sigh: "Give me some coffee, will you, darling? I’m simply
dying of thirst.”

And soon we were on to Fritz’s favourite topic: he pro-
nounced it Larve.

“On the average,” he told us, "I’m having a big affair every
two years.”

"And how long is it since you had your last?” Sally asked.

“Exactly one year and eleven months!” Fritz gave her his
naughtiest glance.

"How marvellous!” Sally puckered up her nose and laughed
a silvery little stage-laugh: "Doo tell me — what was the last
one like?”

This, of course, started Fritz off on a complete autobiog-
raphy. We had the story of his seduction in Paris, details of
a holiday flirtation at Las Palmas, the four chief New York
romances, a disappointment in Chicago and a conquest in
Boston; tiien back to Paris for a little recreation, a very
beautiful episode in Vienna, to London to be consoled and,
finally, Berlin.

"You know, Fritz darling,” said Sally, puckering up her
nose at me, 1 believe the trouble with you is that you’ve
never really found the right woman.”

"Maybe that’s true — Fritz took this idea very seriously.
His black eyes became liquid and sentimental: “Maybe I’m
still looking for my ideal. . .

"But you’ll find her one day. I’m absolutely certain you

23

will ” Sally included me, with a glance, in the game of laugh-
ing at Fritz.

‘‘You think so?” Fritz grinned lusciously, sparkling at her.

“Don t you think so?” Sally appealed to me.

“Fm sure I don t know,” I said. “Because IVe never been
able to discover what Fritz’s ideal is.”

For some reason, this seemed to please Fritz. He took it
as a kind of testimonial: “And Chris knows me pretty well,”
he chimed in. “If Chris doesn’t know, well, I guess no one
does.”

Then it was time for Sally to go.

“I’m supposed to meet a man at the Adlon at five,” she
explained. “And it’s six already! Never mind, it’ll do the old
sw.ne good to wait. He wants me to be his mistress, but I’ve
told him I’m damned if I will till he’s paid all my debts. Why
are men always such beasts?” Opening her bag, she rapidly
retouched her lips and eyebrows: “Oh, by the way, Fritz
darling, could you be a perfect angel and lend me ten marks?
I haven’t got a bean for a taxi.”

“Why sure!” Fritz put his hand into his pocket and paid
up without hesitation, like a hero.

Sally turned to me: “I say, will you come and have tea
with me sometime? Give me your telephone number. I’ll
ring you up.”

I suppose, I thought, she imagines I’ve got cash. Well, this
will be a lesson to her, once for all. I wrote my number in
her tiny leather book, Fritz saw her out.

“Well!” he came bounding back into the room and glee-
fully shut the door: “What do you think of her, Chris? Didn’t
I tell you she was a goodlooker?”

“You did indeed!”

“I’m getting crazier about her each time I see her!” With
a sigh of pleasure, he helped himself to a cigarette; “More
coffee, Chris?”

“No, thank you very much.”

“You know, Chris, I think she took a fancy to you, too!”

“Oh, rot!”

24

“Honestly, I do!’’ Fritz seemed pleased. “Eventually I
guess we’ll be seeing a lot of her from now on!”

When I got back to FrL Schroeder’s, I felt so giddy that
I had to lie down for half an hour on my bed. Fritz’s black
coffee was as poisonous as ever.

A few days later, he took me to hear Sally sing.

The Lady Windermere (which now, I hear, no longer
exists) was an arty “informaF bar, just off the Tauentzien-
strasse, which the proprietor had evidently tried to make
look as much as possible like Montparnasse. The walls were
covered with sketches on menu-car^, caricatures and signed
theatrical photographs — (“To the one and only Lady Win-
dermere.” “To Johnny, with all my heart.”) The Fan itself,
four times life size, was displayed above the bar. There was
a big piano on a platform in the middle of the room.

I was curious to see how Sally would behave. I had im-
agined her, for some reason, rather ner\^ous, but she wasn’t,
in the least. She had a surprisingly deep husky voice. She
sang badly, without any expression, her hands hanging down
at her sides — ^yet her performance was, in its own way, effec-
tive because of her startling appearance and her air of not
caring a curse what people thought of her. Her arms hanging
carelessly limp, and a t^e-it-or-leave-it grin on her face, she
sang:

Now I know why Mother
Told me to be true;

She meant me for Someone
Exactly like you.

There was quite a lot of applause. The pianist, a handsome
young man with blond wavy hair, stood up and solemnly
kissed Sally’s hand. Then she sang two more songs, one in
French and the other in German. These weren’t so well
received.

After the singing, there was a good deal more hand-kissing

25

and a general movement towards the bar. Sally seemed to
know everybody in the place. She called them all Thou and
Darling. For a would-be demi-mondaine, she seemed to have
surprisingly little business sense or tact. She wasted a lot of
time making advances to an elderly gentleman who would
obviously have preferred a chat with the barman. Later, we
all got rather dmnk. Then Sally had to go oflF to an appoint-
ment, and the manager came and sat at our table. He and
Fritz talked English Peerage. Fritz was in his element. I
decided, as so often before, never to visit a place of this sort
again.

Then Sally rang up, as she had promised, to invite me to
tea.

She lived a long way down the Kurfiirstendamm on the
last dreary stretch which rises to Halensee. I was shown into
a big gloomy half -furnished room by a fat untidy landlady
with a pouchy sagging jowl like a toad. There was a broken-
down sofa in one comer and a faded picture of an eighteenth-
century battle, with the wounded reclining on their elbows
in graceful attitudes, admiring the prancings of Frederick
the Great’s horse.

‘"Oh, hullo, Chris darling!” cried Sally from the doorway.
“How sweet of you to come! I was feeling most terribly
lonely. Tve been crying on Frau Karpf s chest. Nicht wahr,
Frau Karpf?” She appealed to the toad landlady, “ich habe
geweint auf Dein Bmst.” Frau Karpf shook her bosom in a
toad-like chuckle,

“Would you rather have coffee, Chris, or tea?” Sally con-
tinued. “You can have either. Only I don’t recommend the
tea much. I don’t know what Frau Karpf does to it; I think
she empties all the kitchen slops together into a jug and boils
them up with the tea-leaves.”

*T11 have coffee, then.”

“Frau Karpf, Leibling, willst Du sein ein Engel und bring
zwei Tassen von Kaffee?” Sally’s German was not merely

26

incorrect; it was all her own. She pronounced every word
in a mincing, specially “foreign" manner. You could tell that
she was speaking a foreign language from her expression
alone. “Chixis darhng, will you be an angel and draw the cur-
tains?"

I did so, although it was still quite light outside. Sally,
meanwhile, had switched on the table-lamp. As I turned from
the window, she curled herself up delicately on the sofa like
a cat, and, opening her bag, felt for a cigarette. But hardly
was the pose complete before shed jumped to her feet again:

“Would you like a Prairie Oj^sterr' She produced glasses,
eggs and a bottle of Worcester sauce from the boot-cupboard
under the dismantled washstand: “I practically live on them."
Dexterously, she broke the eggs into the glasses, added the
sauce and stirred up the mixture with the end of a fountain-
pen: “They’re about all I can afford." She was back on the
sofa again, daintily curled up.

She was wearing the same black dress to-day, but without
the cape. Instead, she had a little white collar and white
cuffs. They produced a kind of theatrically chaste effect, like
a nun in grand opera. “What are you laughing at, Chris?”
she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. But still I couldn’t stop grinning.
There was, at that moment, something so extraordinarily
comic in Sally’s appearance. She was really beautiful, with
her little dark head, big eyes and finely arched nose — and so
absurdly conscious of all these features. There she lay, as
complacently feminine as a turtle-dove, with her poised self-
conscious head and daintily arranged hands.

“Chris, you swine, do tell me why you’re laughing?"

“I really haven’t the faintest idea."

At this, she began to laugh, too: “You are mad, you know!"

“Have you been here long?” I asked, looking roimd the
large gloomy room.

“Ever since I arrived in Berlin. Let’s see— that was about
two months ago."

I asked what had made her decide to come out to Ger^

27

many at all. Had she come alone? No, she’d come with a girl
friend. An actress. Older than Sally. The girl had been to
Berlin before. She’d told Sally that they’d certainly be able
to get work with the Ufa. So Sally borrowed ten pounds from
a nice old gentleman and joined her.

She hadn't told her parents anything about it until the two
of them had actually arrived in Germany: ‘1 wish you’d met
Diana. She was the most marvellous gold-digger you can
imagine. She’d get hold of men anywhere — it didn’t matter
whether she could speak their language or not. She made me
nearly die of laughing. I absolutely adored her.”

But when they’d been together in Berlin three weeks and
no job had appeared, Diana had got hold of a banker, who’d
taken her oft with him to Paris.

“And left you here alone? I must say I think that was pretty
rotten of her.”

“Oh, I don’t know. . . . Everyone’s got to look after them-
selves. I expect, in her place. I’d have done the same.”

“I bet you wouldn’t!”

“Anyhow, I’m all right. I can always get along alone.”

“How old are you, Sally?”

“Nineteen.”

“Good God! And I thought you were about twenty-fivel”

“I know. Eveiyone does.”

Frau Karpf came shuffling in with two cups of coffee on
a tarnished metal tray.

“Oh, Frau Karpf, LeibHng, wie wunderbar von Diehl”

“Whatever makes you stay in this house?” I asked, when
the landlady had gone out: “I’m sure you could get a much
nicer room than this.”

“Yes, I know 1 could.”

“Well then, why don’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m lazy, I suppose.”

“What do you have to pay here?”

“Eighty marks a month.”

“W^ith breakfast included?”

“No — ^I don’t think so.”

28

"You don t think soT* I exclaimed severely. "But surely
you must know for certain?’'

Sally took this meekly: "Yes, it’s stupid of me, I suppose.
But, you see, I just give the old girl money when IVe got
some. So it’s rather difficult to reckon it all up exactly.”

"But, good heavens, Sally — I only pay fifty a month for
my room, with breakfast, and it’s ever so much nicer than
this one!”

Sally nodded, but continued apologetically: "And another
thing is, you see, Christopher darling, I don’t quite know
what Frau Karpf would do if I were to leave her. I’m sure
she’d never get another lodger. Nobody else would be able
to stand her face and her smell and ever\*thmg. As it is, she
owes three months’ rent. They’d turn her out at once if they
knew she hadn’t any lodgers: and if they do that, she says
she’ll commit suicide.”

"All the same, I don’t see why you should sacrifice your-
self for her.”

"I’m not sacrificing myself, really. I quite Hke being here,
you know. Frau Karpf and I understand each other. She’s
more or less what I’ll be in thirty years’ time. A respecta-
ble sort of landlady would probably turn me out after a
week.”

"My landlady wouldn’t turn you out.”

Sally smiled vaguely, screwing up her nose: “How do you
like the coffee, Chris darling?”

"I prefer it to Fritz’s,” I said evasively.

Sally laughed: "Isn’t Fritz marvellous? I adore him. I
adore the way he says, T give a damn.’ ”

" ‘Hell, I give a damn.’ ” I tried to imitate Fritz. We both
laughed. Sally lit another cigarette: she smoked the whole
time. I noticed how old her hands looked in the lamplight.
They were nerv’ous, veined and very thin — the hands of a
middle-aged woman. The green finger-nails seemed not to
belong to them at all; to have settled on them by chance. —
like hard, bright, ugly little beetles. “It’s a funny tiling,” she
added meditatively, "Fritz and I have never slept together,

29

you know.” She paused, asked with interest: “Did you think
we had?”

“Well, yes — suppose I did.”

“We haven't. Not once . • she yawned. “And now I
don't suppose we ever shall.”

We smoked for some minutes in silence. Then Sally be-
gan to tell me about her family. She was the daughter of a
Lancashire mill-owner. Her mother was a Miss Bowles, an
heiress with an estate, and so, when she and Mr. Jackson
were married, they joined their names together: “Daddy's
a terrible snob, although he pretends not to be. My real
name's Jackson-Bowles; but, of course, I can't possibly call
myself that on the stage. People would think I was crazy ”

“I thought Fritz told me your mother was French?”

“No, of course not!” Sally seemed quite annoyed. “Fritz
is an idiot. He's always inventing things.”

Sally had one sister, named Betty. “She's an absolute angel.
I adore her. She's seventeen, but she's still most terribly in-
nocent. Mummy's bringing her up to be very county. Betty
would nearly die if she knew what an old whore I am. She
knows absolutely nothing whatever about men.”

“But why aren't you county, too, Sally?”

“I don't know. I suppose that's Daddy's side of the family
coming out. You'd love Daddy. He doesn't care a damn for
anyone. He's the most marvellous business man. And about
once a month he gets absolutely dead tight and horrifies all
Mummy's smart friends. It was he who said I could go to
London and learn acting.”

"Tou must have left school very young?”

“Yes. I couldn't bear school. I got myself expelled.”

“However did you do that?”

“I told the headmistress I was going to have a baby,”

“Oh, rot, Sally, you didn't!”

“I did, honestly! There was the most terrible commotion.
They got a doctor to examine me, and sent for my parents.
When they found out there was nothing the matter, they
were most frightfully disappointed. The headmistress said

30

that a girl who could even think of anjthing so disgusting
couldn't possibly be allowed to stay on and corrupt the other
girls. So I got my own way. And ihen I pestered Daddy till
he said I might go to London.'’

Sally had settled down in London, at a hostel, with other
girl students. There, in spite of supervision, she had managed
to spend large portions of the night at young mens fiats:
‘TThe first man who seduced me had no idea I was a virgin
until I told him afterwards. He was marv’ellous. I adored him.
He was an absolute genius at comedy parts. He’s sure to be
terribly famous, one day.”

After a time, Sally had got crowd-work in films, and finally
a small part in a touring company. Then she had met Diana.

"And how much longer shall you stay in Berlin?” I asked.

"Heaven knows. This job at the Lady Windermere only
lasts another week. I got it through a man I met at the Eden
Bar. But he’s gone off to Vienna now. I must ring up the Ufa
people again, I suppose. And then there’s an awfful old Jew
who takes me out sometimes. He’s always promising to get
me a contract; but he only wants to sleep with me, the old
swine. I think the men in this country are awful. They’ve
none of them got any money, and they expect you to let them
seduce you if they give you a box of chocolates.”

"How on earth are you going to manage when this job
comes to an end?”

"Oh well, I get a small allowance from home, you know.
Not that that’ll last much longer. Mununy’s already threat-
ened to stop it if I don’t come back to England soon. . . .
Of course, they think I’m here with a girl friend. If Mummy
knew I was on my ovm, she’d simply pass right out. Anyhow,
I’ll get enough to support myselJF somehow, soon. I loathe
taking money from them. Daddy’s business is in a frightfully
bad way now, from the slump.”

“I say, Sally — if you ever really get into a mess I wish you’d
let me know ”

SaUy laughed: "That’s terribly sweet of you, Chris. But I
don’t sponge on my friends ”

31

“Isn’t Fritz your friend?” It had jumped out of my mouth.
But Sally didn’t seem to mind a bit.

“Oh yes. I’m awfully fond of Fritz, of course. But he’s got
pots or cash. Somehow, when people have cash, you feel
diSerently about them — I don’t know why.”

“And how do you know I haven’t got pots of cash, too?”

“You?” Sally burst out laughing. “Why, I knew you were
hard-up the first moment I set eyes on you!”

The afternoon Sally came to tea with me, Frl. Schroeder
was beside herself with excitement. She put on her best
dress for the occasion and waved her hair. When the door-
bell rang, she threw open the door with a flourish: “Herr
Iss)woo,” she announced, winking knowingly at me and
speaking very loud, “there’s a lady to see you!”

I then formally introduced Sally and Frl. Schroeder to
each other. Frl. Schroeder was overflowing with politeness:
she addressed Sally repeatedly as “Gnadiges Fraulein.” Sally,
with her page-boy cap stuck over one ear, laughed her
silvery laugh and sat down elegantly on the sofa. Frl.
Schroeder hovered about her in unfeigned admiration and
amazement. She had evidently never seen anyone like Sally
before. When she brought in the tea there were, in place of
tiie usual little chunks of pale unappetising pastry, a plate-
ful of jam tarts arranged in the shape of a star. I noticed
also that Frl. Schroeder had provided us with two tiny paper
serviettes, perforated at the edges to resemble lace. (When,
later, I complimented her on these preparations, she told
me that she had always used the serviettes when the Herr
Rittmeister had had his fiancee to tea. “Oh, yes, Herr Issyvoo.
You can depend on me! I know what pleases a young lady!”)

“Do you mind if I lie down on your sofa, darling?” SaUy
asked, as soon as we were alone.

“No, of course not.”

SaUy puUed off her cap, swung her little velvet shoes up
on to the sofa, opened her bag and began powdering: “I’m

32

most terribly tired. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. IVe got a
mai-\^ellous new lover.”

I began to put out the tea. Sally gave me a sidelong glance:

“Do I shock you when I talk like that, Christopher darling?”

“Not in the least.”

“But you don’t like it?”

“It’s no business of mine.” I handed her the tea-glass.

“Oh, for Gods sake,” cried Sally, “don’t start being English!
Of course it’s your business what you think!”

“Well then, if you want to know, it rather bores me.”

This annoyed her even more than I had intended. Her tone
changed: she said coldly: “I thought you’d understand.” She
sighed: “But I forgot — you’re a man.”

“I’m sorry, Sally. I can’t help being a man, of course. . . .
But please don’t be angry with me. I only meant that when
you talk like that it’s really just nervousness. You’re naturally
rather shy with strangers, I think: so you’ve got into this
trick of trying to bounce them into approving or disapproving
of you, violently. I know, because I try it myself, sometimes.
. . . Only I wish you wouldn’t try it on me, because it just
doesn’t work and it only makes me feel embarrassed. If you
go to bed with every single man in Berlin and come and tell
me about it each time, you still won’t convince me that you’re
La Dame aux C amelias — because, really and truly, you know,
you aren’t.”

“No ... I suppose I’m not — Sally's voice was carefully
impersonal. She was beginning to enjoy this conversation. I
had succeed in flattering her in some new way: “Then what
am I, exactly, Christopher darling?”

“You’re the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson-Bowles ”

Sally sipped her tea: “Yes ... I think I see what you
mean. . . . Perhaps you’re right . . . Then you think I
ought to give up having lovers altogether?”

“Certainly I don’t As long as you’re sure you’re really
enjoying yourself.”

“Of course,” said Sally gravely, after a pause, “Fd never let
love interfere with my work. Work comes before everything.

33

. . , But I don’t believe that a woman can be a great actress
who hasn’t had any love-affairs — she broke off suddenly:
‘What are you laughing at, Chris?”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re always laughing at me. Do you think I’m the most
ghastly idiot?”

“No, Sally. I don’t think you’re an idiot at all. It’s quite true,
I tvas laughing. People I Like often make me want to laugh
at them. I don’t know why.”

“Then you do like me, Christopher darling?”

“Yes, of course I like you, Sally. What did you think?”

“But you’re not in love with me, are you?”

“No. I’m not in love with you.”

“I’m awfully glad. I’ve wanted you to like me ever since
we first met. But I’m glad you’re not in love with me, be-
cause, somehow, I couldn’t possibly be in love with you — so,
if you had been, everything would have been spoilt.”

“Well then, that’s very lucky, isn’t it?”

“Yes, very . . .” Sally hesitated. “There’s something I want
to confess to you, Chris darling. . . . I’m not sure if you’ll
understand or not.”

“Remember, I’m only a man, Sally.”

Sally laughed: “It’s the most idiotic little thing. But some-
how, I’d hate it if you found out without my telling you. . . .
You know, the other day, you said Fritz had told you my
mother was French?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And I said he must have invented it? Well, he hadn’t
. . . You see. I’d told him she was.”

“But why on earth did you do that?”

We both began to laugh. “Goodness knows,” said SaBy. “I
suppose I wanted to impress him.”

“But what is there impressive in having a French mother?”

“I’m a bit mad like that sometimes, Chris. You must be
patient with me.”

“All right, Sally, I’ll be patient”

34

“And youll swear on your honour not to tell Fritz?*'

«T »

I swear.

“If you do, you swine ” exclaimed Sally, laughing and pick-
ing up the paper-knife dagger from my writing-table, “111
cut your throat!”

Afterwards, I asked Frl. Schroeder what she'd thought of
Sally. She was in raptures: “Like a picture, Herr Issyvool
And so elegant: such beautiful han^ and feet! One can
see that she belongs to the very best societ)^ . . . You know,
Herr Issyvoo, I should never have expected you to have a
lady friend like that! You always seem so quiet. . .

“Ah, well, Frl. Schroeder, it*s often the quiet ones —

She went off into her little scream of laughter, swaying
backw^ards and forwards on her short legs:

“Quite right, Herr Issyvoo! Quite right!”

On New Year s Eve, Sally came to live at Frl. Schroeder's.

It had all been arranged at the last moment. Sally, her
suspicions sharpened by my repeated w^amings, had caught
out Frau Karpf in a particularly gross and clumsy piece of
swindling. So she had hardened her heart and given notice.
She was to have Frl. Kost s old room. Frl. Schroeder was, of
course, enchanted.

We all had our Sylvester Abend dinner at home: Frl.
Schroeder, Frl. Mayr, Sally, Bobby, a mixer colleague from
the Troika and myself. It w’as a great success. Bobby, already
restored to favour, flirted daringly with Frl. Schroeder, Frl.
Mayr and Sally, talking as one great artiste to another, dis-
cussed the possibilities of music-hall work in England. Sally
told some really startling lies, which she obviously for the
moment half-believed, about how she'd appeared at the Pal-
ladium and the London Coliseum. Frl. Mayr capped them
wdth a story of how she' d been drawn through the streets of
Munich in a carriage by excited students. From this point
it did not take Sally long to persuade Frl. Ma>T to sing

35

Sennerin Abschied von der Aim, which, after claret cup and
a bottle of very inexpensive cognac, so exactly suited my
mood that I shed a few tears. We all joined in the repeats and
the final, ear-splitting Juch~he! Then Sally sang ‘IVe got those
Little Boy Blues” with so much expression that Bobby s mixer
colleague, taking it personally, seized her round the waist
and had to be restrained by Bobby, who reminded him firmly
that it was time to be getting along to business.

Sally and I went with them to the Troika, where we met
Fritz. With him was Klaus Linke, the young pianist who used
to accompany Sally when she sang at the Lady Windermere.
Later, Fritz and I went off alone. Fritz seemed rather de-
pressed: he wouldn’t tell me why. Some girls did classical
figure-tableaux behind gauze. And then there was a big
dancing-hall with telephones on the tables. We had the usual
kind of conversations: “Pardon me, Madame, I feel sure
from your voice that you’re a fascinating little blonde with
long black eyelashes — ^just my type. How did I know? Aha,
that’s my secret! Yes — quite right: I’m tall, dark, broad-
shouldered, military appearance, and the tiniest little mous-
tache. . . . You don’t believe me? Then come and see for
yourself!” The couples were dancing with hands on each
other’s hips, yelling in each other’s faces, streaming with
sweat. An orchestra in Bavarian costume whooped and drank
and perspired beer. The place stank like a zoo. After this, I
thi n k I strayed off alone and wandered for hours and hours
through a jungle of paper streamers. Next morning, when I
woke, the bed was full of them.

I had been up and dressed for some time when Sally re-
turned home. She came straight into my room, looking tired
but very pleased with herself.

“HuUo, darling! What time is it?”

“Nearly lunch-time.”

“I say, is it really? How marvellous! I’m practically starv-
ing. IVe had nothing for breakfast but a cup of coffee. . . ”
She paused expectantly, waiting for my next question.

36

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“But, darling,” Sally opened her eyes very wide in affected
surprise: “I thought you knew!”

“I haven’t the least idea.”

“Nonsense!”

“Really I haven’t, Sally.”

“Oh, Christopher darling, how can you be such a liar!
WTiy, it was obvious that you’d planned the whole thing! The
way you got rid of Fritz — ^he looked so cross! Klaus and I
nearly died of laughing.”

All the same, she wasn’t quite at her ease. For the first
time, I saw her blush.

“Have you got a cigarette, Chris?”

I gave her one and lit the match. She blew out a long
cloud of smoke and walked slowly to the window:

“I’m most terribly in love with him.”

She turned, frowning shghtly; crossed to the sofa and
curled herself up carefully, arranging her hands and feet:
“At least, I think I am,” she added.

I allowed a respectful pause to elapse before asking: “And
is Klaus in love with you?”

“He absolutely adores me.” Sally was very serious indeed.
She smoked for several minutes: “He says he fell in love
with me the first time we met, at the Lady Windermere. But
as long as we were working together, he didn’t dare to say
anything. He was afraid it might put me off my singing.
. . . He says that, before he met me, he’d no idea what a
marv^ellously beautiful thing a woman’s body is. He’s only
had about three women before, in his life . .

I lit a cigarette.

“Of course, Chris, I don’t suppose you really understand
. . , It’s awfully hard to explain. . . ”

I m sure it is.

“I’m seeing him again at four o’clock.” Sally’s tone was
slightly defiant.

“In that case, you’d better get some sleep. Ill ask Fri

37

Schroeder to scramble you some eggs; or 111 do them myself
if she’s still too drunk. You get into bed. You can eat them
there.”

“Thanks, Chris darling. You are an angel.” Sally yawned.
“What on earth I should do without you, I don’t know.”

After this, Sally and IGaus saw each other every day. They
generally met at our house; and, once, Klaus stayed the whole
night. Frl. Schroeder didn’t say much to me about it, but I
could see that she was rather shocked. Not that she disap-
proved of Klaus: she thought him very attractive. But she
regarded Sally as my property, and it shocked her to see me
standing so tamely to one side. I am sure, however, that if I
hadn’t Imown about the affair, and if Sally had really been
deceiving me, Frl. Schroeder would have assisted at the
conspiracy with the greatest relish.

Meanwhile, Klaus and I were a little shy of each other.
When we happened to meet on the stairs, we bowed coldly,
like enemies.

About the middle of January, Klaus left suddenly, for
England. Quite unexpectedly he had got the offer of a very
good job, s)nchronizing music for the films. The afternoon
he came to say good-bye there was a positively surgical
atmosphere in the fiat, as though Sally were undergoing a
dangerous operation. Frl. Schroeder and Frl. Mayr sat in the
living-room and laid cards. The results, Frl. Schroeder later
assured me, couldn’t have been better. The eight of clubs
had appeared three times in a favourable conjunction.

Sally spent the whole of the next day curled up on the sofa
in her room, with pencil and paper on her lap. She was
writing poems. She wouldn’t let me see them. She smoked
cigarette after cigarette, and mixed Prairie Oysters, but re-

38

fused to eat more than a few mouthfuls of Frl. Schroeder s
omelette.

‘'Can't I bring you something in, Sally?”

“No thanks, Chris darling. I just don't want to eat any-
thing at all. I feel all marvellous and ethereal, as if I was a
kind of most wonderful saint, or something. You've no idea
how glorious it feels. . . . Have a chocolate, darling? Klaus
gave me three boxes. If I eat any more, I shall be sick.”

“Thank you.”

“I don't suppose I shall ever marry him. It would min our
careers. You see, Christopher, he adores me so terribly that
it wouldn't be good for him to always have me hanging
about.”

“Y'ou might marry after you're both famous.”

Sally considered this:

“No. . . . That would spoil ever)*thing. We should be
trying all the time to live up to our old selves, if you know
what I mean. And we should both be different. ... He was
so marv^ellously primitive: just like a faun. He made me feel
like a most marvellous nymph, or something, miles away from
anywhere, in the middle of the forest”

The first letter from Klaus duly arrived. We had all been
anxiously awaiting it; and Frl. Schroeder woke me up
specially early to tell me that it had come. Perhaps she was
afraid that she w^ould never get a chance of reading it her-
self and relied on me to tell her the contents. If so, her fears
were groundless, Sally not only sho%ved the letter to Frl.
Schroeder, Frl. Mayr, Bobby and myself, she even read
selections from it aloud in the presence of the porter s wife,
who had come up to collect the rent.

From the first, the letter left a nasty taste in my mouth. Its
whole tone was egotistical and a bit patronizing. Klaus didn't
like London, he said. He felt lonely there. The food dis-
agreed with him. And the people at the studio treated him
with lack of consideration. He wished Sally were with him;

39

she could have helped him in many ways. However, now
that he was in England, he would try to make the best of it
He would work hard and earn money; and Sally was to work
hard too. Work would cheer her up and keep her from getting
depressed. At the end of the letter came various endear-
ments, rather too slickly applied. Reading them, one felt:
he’s written this kind of thing several times before.

Sally was delighted, however. Klaus’ exhortation made such
an impression upon her that she at once rang up several film
companies, a theatrical agency and half a dozen of her “busi-
ness ’ acquaintances. Nothing definite came of all tliis, it is
true; but she remained very optimistic throughout the next
twenty-four hours — even her dreams, she told me, had been
full of contracts and four-figure cheques: “It’s the most
marv’ellous feeling, Chris. I know Tm going right ahead now
and going to become the most wonderful actress in the
world”

One morning, about a week after this, I went into Sally’s
room and found her holding a letter in her hand. I recognized
Klaus’ handwriting at once.

“Good morning, Chris darling.”

“Good morning, Sally.”

“How did you sleep?” Her tone was unnaturally bright
and chatty.

“All right, thanks. How did you?”

“Fairly ail right. . . . Filthy weather, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I walked over to the window to look. It was.

Sally smiled conversationally: “Do you know what this
swine’s gone and done?”

“What swine?” I wasn’t going to be caught out.

“Oh Chris! For God’s sake, don’t be so dense!”

“I’m very sorry. I’m afraid I’m a bit slow in the uptake this
morning.”

“I can’t be bothered to explain, darling.” Sally held out the
letter. “Here, read this, will you? Of all the blasted im-

40

pudence! Read it aloud. I want to hear how it sounds ”

“Mein liebes, armes Kind,” the letter began. Klaus called
Sally his poor dear child because, as he explained, he was
afraid that what he had to tell her would make her terribly
unhappy. Nevertheless, he must say it: he must tell her that
he had come to a decision. She mustn't imagine that this
had been easy for him: it had been ver)^ diflScult and painful.
All the same, he knew he was right. In a word, they must
part.

“I see now,” wrote Klaus, “that I behaved very selfishly.
I thought only of my own pleasure. But now I realize that I
must have had a bad influence on you. My dear little girl,
you have adored me too much. If we should continue to be
together, you would soon have no will and no mind of your
own.” Klaus went on to advise Sally to live for her w^ork.
“Work is the only thing which matters, as I myself have
found.” He was very much concerned that Sally shouldn’t
upset herself unduly; “You must be brave, Sally, my poor
darling child.”

Right at the end of the letter, it all came out:

“I w^as invited a few nights ago to a party at the house of
Lady Klein, a leader of the English aristocracy. I met there
a very beautiful and intelligent young English girl named
Miss Gore-Eckersley. She is related to an English lord whose
name I couldn’t quite hear — you will probably know which
one I mean. We have met twice since then and had won-
derful conversations about many things. I do not think I have
ever met a girl who could understand my mind so well as
she does — ”

“That’s a new one on me,” broke in Sally bitterly, with
a short laugh; “I never suspected the bov of having a mind
at all.”

At this moment we were interrupted by Frl Schroeder
who had come, sniffing secrets, to ask if Sally would like a
bath. I left them together to make the most of the occasion.

“I can t be angry with the fool,” said Sally, later in the
day, pacing up an^ down the room and furiously smoking;

41

“I just feel sorry for him in a motherly sort of way. But what
on earth’ll happen to his work, if he chucks himself at these
women s heads, I can’t imagine.”

She made another turn of the room:

“I think if he’d been having a proper aflFair with another
woman, and had only told me about it after it’d been going
on for a long time, I’d have minded more. But this girl! Why,
I don’t suppose she’s even his mistress.”

“Obviously not,” I agreed. “I say, shall we have a Prairie
0}"ster?”

“How marvellous you are, Chris! You always think of just
the right thing. I wish I could fall in love with you. Klaus
isn’t worth your little finger ”

"1 know he isn’t.”

“The blasted cheek,” exclaimed Sally, gulping the Worces-
ter sauce and licking her upper lip, “of his saying I adored
him! . . . The worst of it is, I did!”

That evening I went into her room and found her with pen
and paper before her:

“I’ve written about a million letters to him and tom them
all up.”

“It’s no good, Sally. Let’s go to the cinema.”

“Right you are, Chris darling.” Sally wiped her eyes with
the comer of her tiny handkerchief: “It’s no use bothering,
is it?”

“Not a bit of use.”

“And now I jolly well will be a great actress — ^just to show
him!”

“That’s the spirit!”

We went to a little cinema in the Biilowstrasse, where they
were showing a film about a girl who sacrificed her stage
career for the sake of a Great Love, Home and Children. We
laughed so much that we had to leave before the end.

“I feel ever so much better now,” said Sally, as we were
coming away.

“I’m glad ”

42

“Perhaps, after all, I can’t have been properly in love
with him. . , . What do you think?”

“It’s rather difficult for me to say/’

“I’ve often thought I was in love with a man, and then I
found I wasn’t. But this time,” Sally’s voice was regretful,
“I really did feel sure of it. . . . And now, somehow, everj^-
thing seems to have got a bit confused. . . .”

“Perhaps you’re suffering from shock,” I suggested.

Sally was very pleased with this idea: “Do you know, I
expect I am! , . . You know, Chris, you do understand
women most marv^ellously: better than any man I’ve ever
met. . . . I’m sure that some day you’ll write the most mar-
vellous novel which’ll sell simply millions of copies.”

“Thank you for believing in me, Sally!”

“Do you believe in me, too, Chris?”

“Of course I do.”

“No, but honestly?”

“Well . . . I’m quite certain you’ll make a terrific success
at something — only I’m not sure what it’ll be. ... I mean,
tliere’s so many things you could do if you tried, aren’t
there?”

“I suppose there are.” Sally became thoughtful. “At least,
sometimes I feel like that. . . . And sometimes I feel I’m no
damn’ use at anything. . . . Why, I can’t even keep a man
faithful to me for the inside of a month.”

“Oh, Sally, don’t let’s start all that again!”

“AU right, Chris — ^we won’t start all that. Let’s go and have
a drink/*

During the weeks that followed, Sally and I were together
most of the day. Curled up on the sofa in the big dingy
room, she smoked, drank Prairie Oysters, talked endlessly of
the future. When the weather was fine, and I hadn’t any
lessons to give, we strolled as far as the Wittenbergplatz anSi
sat on a benclx in the sunshine, discussing the people who

43

went past. Everj^body stared at Sally, in her canary yellow
beret and shabby fur coat, like the skin of a mangy old dog.

“I wonder,” she was fond of remarking, “what they’d say
if they knew that we two old tramps were going to be the
most marvellous novelist and the greatest actress in the
world.”

“They’d probably be very much surprised.”

“I expect we shall look back on this time when we’re driv-
ing about in our Mercedes, and think: After all, it wasn’t
such bad fun!”

“It wouldn't be such bad fun if we had that Mercedes now.”

We talked continually about wealth, fame, huge contracts
for Sally, record-breaking sales for the novels I should one
day wTite. “I think,” said Sally, “it must be marvellous to be
a novelist. You’re frightfully dreamy and unpractical and im-
businesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you
as much as they want^ — and then you sit down and write a
book about them which fairly shows them what swine they
all are, and it’s the most terrific success and you make pots of
money.”

“I expect the trouble with me is that I’m not quite dreamy
enough. . .

. if only I could get a really rich man as my lover.
Let’s see ... I shouldn’t want more than three thousand
a year, and a flat and a decent car. I’d do anything, just now,
to get rich. If you’re rich you can afford to stand out for a
really good contract; you don’t have to snap up the first offer
you get. . . . Of course, I’d be absolutely faithful to the man
who kept me —

Sadly said things like this very seriously and evidently be-
lieved she meant them. She was in a curious state of mind,
restless and nervy. Often she flew into a temper for no special
reason. She talked incessantly about getting work, but made
no effort to do so. Her allowance hadn’t been stopped, so
far, however, and we were living very cheaply, since Sally
no longer cared to go out in the evenings or to see other

44

people at all. Once, Fritz came to tea. I left them alone to-
gether afterwards to go and write a letter. When I came
back Fritz had gone and Sally was in tears:

“That man bores me so!” she sobbed. “I hate him! I should
like to kill him!”

But in a few minutes she was quite calm again. I started
to mix tlie inevitable Prairie Oyster. Sally, curled up on the
sofa, was thoughtfully smoking:

“I wonder ” she said suddenly, “if Pm going to have a
baby.”

“Good God!” I nearly dropped the glass: “Do you reallv
think you are?”

“I don t know. With me it’s so difficult to tell: I’m so ir-
regular . . . Ive felt sick sometimes. It’s probably some-
thing I’ve eaten. . .

“But hadn’t you better see a doctor?”

“Oh, I suppose so.” Sally yawned listlessly. “There’s no
hurry.”

“Of course there’s a hurry! You’ll go and see a doctor
to-morrow!”

“Look here, Chris, who the hell do you think you’re order-
ing about? I wish now I hadn’t said anytliing about it at all!”
Sally was on the point of bursting into tears again.

“Oh, all right! All right!” I hastily tried to calm her. “Do
just what you like. It’s no business of mine.”

“Sony, darling. I didn’t mean to be snappy. Ill see how I
feel in the morning. Perhaps I will go and see tiiat doctor,
after all.”

But of course, she didn’t Next day, indeed, she seemed
much brighter: “Let s go out this evening, Chris. I’m getting
sick of this room. Let’s go and see some life!”

“Right you are, Sally. \^"here would you like to go?”

“Let’s go to the Troika and talk to that old idiot Bobby.
Perhaps he’ll stand us a drink — yon never knowl”

Bobby didn’t stand us any drinks; but Sally’s suggestion
proved to have been a good one, neverthel^s. For it was

45

while sitting at the bar of the Troika that we first got into
conversation with Clive.

From that moment onwards we were with him almost con-
tinuously; either separately or together. I never once saw him
sober. Clive told us that he drank half a bottle of whisky
before breakfast, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. He
often began to explain to us why he drank so much — it was
because he was very unhappy. But why he was so unhappy
I never found out, because Sally always interrupted to say
that it was time to be going out or moving on to the next place
or smoking a cigarette or having another glass of whisky. She
was drinldng nearly as much whisky as Clive himself. It
never seemed to make her really drunk, but sometimes her
eyes looked awful, as though they had been boiled. Every
day the layer of make-up on her face seemed to get thicker.

Clive was a very big man, good-looking in a heavy Roman
way, and just beginning to get fat. He had about him that
sad, American air of vagueness which is always attractive;
doubly attractive in one who possessed so much money. He
was vague, wistful, a bit lost; dimly anxious to have a good
time and uncertain how to set about getting it. He seemed
never to be quite sure whether he was really enjoying him-
self, whether what we were doing was really fun. He had con-
stantly to be reassured. Was this the genuine article? Was
this the real guaranteed height of a Good Time? It was?
Yes, yes, of course — it was marvellous! It was great! Ha, ha,
ha! His big school-boyish laugh rolled out, re-echoed, be-
came rather forced and died away abruptly on that puzzled
note of enquir}^ He couldn t venture a step without our
support. Yet, even as he appealed to us, I thought I could
sometimes detect odd sly fishes of sarcasm. What did he
really think of us?

Eveiy^ morning, Clive sent round a hired car to fetch us
to the hotel where he was staying. The chauffeur always
brought with him a wonderful bouquet of flowers, ordered

46

from the most expensive flower-shop in the Linden. One
morning I had a lesson to give and arranged with Sally to
join them later. On arriving at the hotel, I found that Clive
and Sally had left early to fly to Dresden. There was a note
from Clive, apologizing profusely and inviting me to lunch
at the hotel restaurant, by myself, as his guest. But I didn't.
I was afraid of that look in the head waiter s eve. In the
evening, when Clive and Sally returned, Clive had brought
me a present: it was a parcel of six silk shirts. ‘‘He wanted to
get you a gold cigarette case,” Sally whispered in my ear,
‘"but I told him shirts would be better. Yours are in such a
state. . . . Besides, w^eve got to go slow at present. We don't
want him to think we're gold-diggers. . .

I accepted them gratefully. What else could I do? Clive
had corrupted us utterly. It was understood that he was
going to put up the money to launch Sally upon a stage
career. He often spoke of this, in a thoroughly nice way, as
though it were a very trivial matter, to be settled, without
fuss, between friends. But no sooner had he touched on the
subject than his attention seemed to wander off again — his
thoughts were as easily distracted as those of a child. Some-
times Sally was veiy hard put to it, I could see, to hide her
impatience. “Just leave us alone for a bit now, darling,” she
would whisper to me, “Clive and I are going to talk busi-
ness.” But however tactfully Sally tried to bring him to the
point, she never quite succeeded. When I rejoined them, half
an hour later, I would find Clive smiling and sipping his
whisky; and Sally also smiling, to conceal her extreme irrita-
tion.

“I adore him,” Sally told me, repeatedly and very solemnly,
whenever we were alone together. She was intensely earnest
in believing this. It was like a dogma in a newly adopted
religious creed; Sally adores Clive. It is a very solemn under-
taking to adore a millionaire. Sally's features began to assume,
with increasing frequency, the rapt expression of the theat-
rical nun. And indeed, when Clive, with his charming vague-
ness, gave a particularly flagrant professional beggar a

47

twenty-mark note, we would exchange- glances of genuine
awe. The waste of so much good money aSected us both like
something inspired, a kind of miracle.

There came an afternoon when Clive seemed more nearly
sober than usual. He began to make plans. In a few days we
were ail tliree of us to leave Berlin, for good. The Orient
Express would take us to Athens. Thence, we should fly to
Eg)^pt. From Egypt to Marseilles. From Marseilles, by boat
to South America. Then Tahiti. Singapore. Japan. Clive
pronounced the names as though they had been stations on
the Wannsee railway, quite as a matter of course; he had
been there already. He knew it all. His matter-of-fact bore-
dom gradually infused reality into the preposterous con-
versat'on. After all, he could do it. I began seriously to be-
lieve that he meant to do it. With a mere gesture of his
wealth, he could alter the whole course of our lives.

What would become of us? Once started, we should never
go back. We could never leave him. Sally, of course, he would
marr)^ I should occupy an ill-defined position: a kind of
private secretary without duties. With a flash of vision, I
saw myself ten years hence, in flannels and black and white
shoes, gone heavier round the jowl and a bit glassy, pouring
out a drink in the lounge of a Californian hotel.

“Come and cast an eye at the funeral,” Clive was saying,
“What funeral, darling?” Sally asked, patiently. This was
a new kind of interruption.

“Why, say, haven’t you noticed it?’ Clive laughed, “It s a
most elegant funeral. It s been going past for the last hour,”
We all three went out on to the b^cony of Clive s room.
Sure enough, the street below was full of people. They were
burying Hermann Muller Ranks of pale steadfast clerks,
government officials, trade union secretaries — ^the whole drab
weary pageant of Prussian Soda! Democracy — ^trudged past
under their banners towards the silhouetted arches of the

48

Brandenburger Tor, from which the long black streamers
stirred slowly in an evening breeze.

“Say, who was this guy, an)way?’’ asked Clive, looking
down. “I guess he must have been a big swell?”

“God knows,” Sally answered, yawning. “Look, Clive dar-
ling, isn't it a marvellous sunset?”

She was quite right. We had nothing to do with those
Germans down there, marching, or with the dead man in the
coffin, or with the words on the banners. In a few days, I
thought, we shall have forfeited all kinship with ninety-nine
per cent, of the population of the world, with the men and
women who earn their living, wbo insure their lives, who are
anxious about the future of their children. Perhaps in the
Middle Ages people felt like this, when they believed them-
selves to have sold their souls to the Devil. It was a curious,
exhilarating, not unpleasant sensation: but, at the same time,
I felt slightly scared. Yes, I said to myself, IVe done it, now.
I am lost.

Next morning, we arrived at the hotel at the usual time.
The porter eyed us, I thought, rather queerly.
horn did you wish to see. Madam?”

The question seemed so extraordinary that we both
laughed.

“Why, number 365, of course,” Sally answered. “Who did
you think? Don't you know us by this time?”

“Tm afraid you can t do that. Madam. The gentleman in
365 left early this morning.”

“Left? You mean he's gone out for the day? That's funny!
What time will he be back?”

“He didn't say anything about coming back. Madam. He
'was travelling to Budapest”

As we stood there goggling at him, a waiter hurried up
with a note.

“Dear Sally and Chris,” it said, “I can't stick this darned

49

town any longer, so am off. Hoping to see you sometime,
Clive."

" ( These are in case I forgot anything. ) "

In the envelope were three hundred-mark notes. These,
the fading flowers, Sally’s four pairs of shoes and two hats
(bought in Dresden) and my six shirts were our total assets
from Clive s visit. At first, Sally was veiy^ angry. Then we both
began to laugh:

“Well, Chris, Tm afraid we’re not much use as gold-
diggers, are we, darling?”

We spent most of the day discussing whether Clive’s de-
parture was a premeditated trick. I was inclined to think
it wasn’t. I imagined him leaving every new town and every
new set of acquaintances in much the same sort of way. I
sympathized with him, a good deal.

Then came the question of what was to be done with the
money. Sally decided to put by two hundred and fifty marks
for some new clothes: fifty marks we would blow that eve-
ning.

But blowing the fifty marks wasn’t as much fun as we’d
imagined it would be. Sally felt ill and couldn’t eat the
wonderful dinner we’d ordered. We were both depressed.

“You know, Chris, I’m beginning to think that men are
always going to leave me. The more I think about it, the
more men I remember who have. It’s ghastly, really.”

“I’ll never leave you, Sally.”

“Won’t you, darling? . . . But seriously, I believe I’m a
sort of Ideal Woman, if you know what I mean. I’m the sort
of woman who can take men away from their wives, but I
could never keep anybody for long. And that’s because I’m
the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets
me; and then he finds he doesn’t really, after all.”

^Well, you’d rather be that than the Ugly Duckling with
the Heart of Gold, wouldn’t you?”

"... I could kick myself, the way I behaved to Clive. I
ought never to have bothered him about money, the way I
did. I expect he thought I was just a common little whore,

50

like all the others. And I really did adore him — in a way. , • .
If rd married him, Fd have made a man out of him. Fd have
got him to give up drinking.”

“You set him such a good example.”

We both laughed.

“The old swine might at least have left me with a decent
cheque,”

“Never mind, darling. There’s more where he came from.”

“I don’t care,” said Sally. “Fm sick of being a whore. Fll
never look at a man with money again.”

Next morning, Sally felt very ill. We both put it down to
the drink. She stayed in bed the whole morning and when
she got up she fainted. I wanted her to see a doctor straight
away, but she wouldn’t. About tea-time, she fainted again
and looked so bad afterwards that Frl. Schroeder and I sent
for a doctor witliout consulting her at all.

The doctor, when he arrived, stayed a long time. Frl.
Schroeder and I sat waiting in the living-room to hear his
diagnosis. But, veiy^ much to our surprise, he left tlie fiat
suddenly, in a great hurry, without even looking in to wish
us good afternoon. I went at once to Sally’s room. Sally was
sitting up in bed, wdth a rather fixed grin on her face:

“Well, Christopher darling, Fve been made an April Fool
of.”

“What do you mean?”

“He says Fm going to have a baby ”

Sally tried to laugh.

“Oh my God!”

“Don’t look so scared, darling! Fve been more or tes ex-
pecting it, you know.”

“It’s Klaus’s, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“Not have it, of course.” Sally reached for a cigarette. I
sat stupidly staring at my sho^.

51

‘Will the doctor . . ”

“No, he won’t. I asked him straight out. He was terribly
shocked. I said: ‘My dear man, what do you imagine would
happen to the unfortunate child if it was bom? Do I look as
if rd make a good motherF ”

“And what did he say to that?’’

“He seemed to think it was quite beside the point. The
only thing which matters to him is his professional reputa-
tion.”

“Well then, we ve got to find someone without a profes-
sional reputation, that’s all.”

“I should think,” said Sally, “we’d better ask Frl. Schroe-
der.”

So Frl. Schroeder was consulted. She took it very well: she
was alarmed but extremely practical. Yes, she knew of some-
body. A friend of a friend’s friend had once had difficulties.
And the doctor was a fully qualified man, very clever indeed.
The only trouble was, he might be rather expensive.

“Tha^ goodness,” Sally inter|ected, “we haven’t spent all
that swine Clive’s money!”

“I must say, I think Klaus ought

“Look here, Chris. Let me tell you this once for all: if I
catch you writing to Klaus about this business. I’ll never for-
give you and I’ll never speak to you again!”

“Oh, very well . • . Of course I won’t. It was just a sugges-
tion, that’s aU.”

I didn’t like the doctor. He kept stroking and pinching
Sally’s arm and pawing her hand. However, he seemed the
right man for the job. Sally was to go mto his private nursing-
home as soon as there was a vacancy for her. Everything was
perfectly official and above-board. In a few polished sen-
tence, the dapper little doctor dispelled the least whiff of
sinister illegality. Sally’s slate of health, he explained, made
it quite impossible for her to undergo the risks of childbirth:
there would be a certificate to that effect. Needless to say,
the certificate would cost a lot of money. So would the
nursing-home and so would the operation itself. The doctor

52

wanted two hundred and fifty marks down before he would
make any arrangements at all. In the end, we beat him down
to two hundred. Sally wanted the extra fifty, she explained to
me later, to get some new nightdresses.

At last, it was spring. The caf& were putting up wooden
platforms on the pavement and the ice-cream shops were
opening, with their rainbow-wheels. We drove to the nursing-
home in an open taxi. Because of the lovely weather, Sally
was in better spirits than I had seen her in for weeks. But
Frl. Schroeder, though she bravely tried to smile, was on the
verge of tears. “The doctor isn’t a Jew, I hope?” Frl. Mayr
asked me sternly. “Don’t you let one of those filthy Jews
touch her. They always tiy^ to get a job of that kind, the
beasts!”

Sally had a nice room, clean and cheerful, with a balcony.
I call^ there again in the evening. L)ing in bed without
her make-up, she looked years younger, like a little girl:

“Hullo, darling. . . . They haven’t killed me yet, you see.
But they’ve been doing their best to. . . . Isn’t this a funny
place? ... I wish that pig Klaus could see me. . . . This is
what comes of not understanding his mind, . .

She w'as a bit feverish and laughed a great deal. One of
the nurses came in for a moment, as if looking for something,
and went out again almost immediately.

“She was dying to get a peep at you,” Sally explained. “You
see, I told her you were the father. You don’t mind, do you
darling . .

“Not at all. Its a compliment.”

“It makes everything so much simpler. Otherwise, if there’s
no one, they think it so odd. And I don’t care for being sort
of looked down on and pitied as the poor betrayed girl who
gets abandoned by her lover. It isn’t particularly flattering for
me, is it? So I told her we were most terribly in love but
fearfully hard up, so that we couldn’t afford to marry, and
how we dreamed of the time when we’d both be rich and

53

famous and then we’d have a family of ten, just to make up
for this one. The nurse was awfully touched, poor girl. In
fact, she wept. To-night, when she’s on duty, she’s going to
show me pictures of her young man. Isn’t it sweet?”

Next day, Frl. Schroeder and I went round to the nursing-
home together. We found SaUy l>dng flat, with the bedclothes
up to her chin:

^'Oh, hullo, you two! Won’t you sit down? What time is it?”
She turned uneasily in bed and rubbed her eyes: “Where did
aU these flowers come from?”

“We brought them.”

“How marv^ellous of you!” Sally smiled vacantly. “Sorry to
be such a fool to-day. . . . It’s this bloody chloroform. . , .
My head s full of it.”

We only sta}^ed a few minutes. On the way home Frl.
Schroeder was terribly upset: “Will you believe it, Herr Is-
syvoo, I couldn’t take it more to heart if it was my own
daughter? Why, when I see the poor child suffering like that,
I’d rather it was myself lying tibere in her place — ^I would
indeed!”

Next day Sally was much better. We all went to visit her:
Frl, Schroeder, Frl. Mayr, Bobby and Fritz. Fritz, of course,
hadn’t the faintest idea what had really happened. Sally, he
had been told, w^as being operated upon for a small internal
ulcer. As always is the way with people when they aren’t
in the know, he made aU kinds of unintentional and star-
tlingly apt references to storks, gooseberry-bushes, peram-
bulators and babies generally; and even recounted a special
new item of scandal about a well-known Berlin society lady
who was said to have undergone a recent illegal operation.
Sally and I avoided each other’s eyes.

On the evening of the next day, I visited her at the nursing-
home for the last time. She was to leave in the morning. She

54

was alone and we sat together on the balcony. She seemed
more or less all right now and could walk about the room.

"I told the Sister I didn’t want to see anybody to-day ex-
cept you.” Sally yawned languidly. "People make me feel so
tired.”

"Would you rather I went away too?”

“Oh no,” said Sally, without much enthusiasm, “if you go,
one of the nurses will only come in and begin to chatter; and
if Tm not lively and bright with her, they’ll say I have to stay
in this hellish place a couple of extra days, and I couldn’t
stand that.”

She stared out moodily over the quiet street:

“You know, Chris, in some ways I wish I’d had that kid.
... It w^ould have been rather marv’ellous to have had it
The last day or two, I’ve been sort of feeling what it would
be like to be a mother. Do you know, last night, I sat here
for a long time by myself and held this cushion in my arms
and imagined it was my baby? And I felt a most marvellous
sort of shut-off feeling from dl the rest of the world, I imag-
ined how it’d grow up and how I’d wrork for it, and how, after
I’d put it to bed at nights, I’d go out and make love to filthy
old men to get money to pay for its food and clothes. . . .
It’s all very well for you to grin like that, Chris ... I did
really!”

“Well, why don’t you marry and have one?”

“I don’t know. ... I feel as if I’d lost faith in men. I just
haven’t any use for them at all. . . . Even you, Christopher,
if you were to go out into the street now and be run over by
a taxi. ... I should be sorry in a way, of course, but I
shouldn’t really care a damn.”

“Thank you, Sally.”

We both laughed.

“I didn’t mean that, of course, darling — at least, not per-
sonally. You mustn’t mind w^hat I say while Im like tliis. I
get all sorts of cra2y ideas into my head. Having babies makes
you feel awfully primitive, like a sort of wild animal or some-
thing, defending its young. Only the trouble is, I haven’t any

55

young to defend. ... I expect thafs what makes me so
frightfully bad-tempered to everybody just now."

It was partly as the result of this conversation that I sud-
denly decided, tliat evening, to cancel all my lessons, leave
Berlin as soon as possible, go to some place on the Baltic and
try to start working. Since Christmas, I had hardly written
a word.

Sally, when I told her my idea, was rather relieved, I
think. We both needed a change. We talked vaguely of her
joining me later; but, even then, I felt that she wouldn’t.
Her plans were very uncertain. Later, she might go to Paris,
or to the Alps, or to the South of France, she said — if she
could get the cash. ‘‘But probably,” she added, “I shall just
stay on here. I should be quite happy. I seem to have got
sort of used to this place.”

I returned to Berlin towards the middle of July.

All this time I had heard nothing of Sally, beyond half a
dozen postcards, exchanged during the first month of my ab-
sence. I wasn’t much surprised to find she’d left her room in
our flat:

“Of course, I quite understand her going. I couldn’t make
her as comfortable as she’d the right to expect; especially as
we haven’t any running water in the beiooms.” Poor Frl.
Schroeder’s eyes had filled with tears. “But it was a terrible
disappointment to me, all the same. . . . Frl. Bowles be-
haved very handsomely, I can’t complain about that. She
insisted on paying for her room until the end of July. I was
entitled to the money, of coixrse, because she didn’t give
notice until the twenty-first — ^but I’d never have mentioned
it. , . . She was such a charming young lady "

“Have you got her address?"

“Oh yes, and the telephone number. You’ll be ringing her
up, of TOurse. She’H be delighted to see you. . • • The other

56

gentlemen came and went, but you were her real friend, Herr
Iss}woo. You know, I always used to hope that you two would
get married. You’d have made an ideal couple. You always
had such a good steady influence on her, and she used to
brighten you up a bit when you got too deep in your books
and studies. . . . Oh yes, Herr Issyvoo, you may laugh —
but you never can tell! Perhaps it isn’t too late yet!”

Next morning, Frl. Schroeder woke me in great excite-
ment:

“Herr Issyvoo, what do you think! They’ve shut the Darm-
stadter und National! Therell be thousands mined, I
shouldn’t wonder! The milkman says well have civil war in
a fortnight! Whatever do you say to that!”

As soon as I’d got dressed, I went down into the street
Sure enough, there was a crowd outside the branch bank
on the Nollendorfplatz comer, a lot of men with leather
satchels and women with stringbags — women like FrL
Schroeder herself. The iron lattices were drawn down over
the bank windows. Most of the people were staring intently
and rather stupidly at the locked door. In the middle of the
door was fixed a small notice, beautifully printed in Gothic
type, like a page from a classic author. The notice said that
the Reichspresident had guaranteed the deposits. Everything
was quite all right. Only the bank wasn’t going to open.

A little boy was pla)dng with a hoop amongst the crowd.
The hoop ran against a woman’s legs. She flew out at him
at once: ""Du, sei bloss nicht so frech! Cheeky little brat!
What do you want here!” Another woman joined in, attacking
the scared hoy: “Get out! You can’t understand it, can you?”
And another asked, in furious sarcasm: “Have you got your
money in the bank too, perhaps?” The boy fled before their
pent-up, exploding rage.

In the afternoon it was very hot. The details of the new
emergency decrees were in the early evening papers — terse,
govemmentally inspired. One alarmist headline stood out

51

boldly, barred with blood-red ink: “Everything Collapses!”
A Nazi journalist reminded his readers that to-morrow, the
fourteenth of July, was a day of national rejoicing in France;
and doubtless, he added, the French would rejoice with
especial fervour this year, at the prospect of Germany’s
downfall. Going into an outfitter’s, I bought myself a pair of
ready-made flannel trousers for twelve marks fifty — a gesture
of confidence by England. Then I got into the Underground
to go and visit Sally.

She was li\ing in a block of three-room flats, designed as
an Artists’ Colony, not far from the Breitenbachplatz. When
I rang the bell, she opened the door to me herself:

“Hilloo, Chris, you old swine!”

“Hullo, Sally darling!*

“How are you? ... Be careful, darling, you’ll make me
untidy. I’ve got to go out in a few minutes.”

I had never seen her all in white before. It suited her. But
her face looked thinner and older. Her hair was cut in a new
way and beautifully waved.

‘Tou’re very smart,” I said.

“Am I?” Sally smiled her pleased, dreamy, self-conscious
smile. I followed her into the sitting-room of the flat. One
wall was entirely window There was some cherry-coloured
wooden furniture and a very low divan with gaudy fringed
cushions. A fluffy white miniature dog jumped to its feet and
yapped. Sally picked it up and went through the gestures of
kissing it, just not touching it with her lips:

“Freddi, mein Liebling, Du bist soo suss!”

“Yours?” I asked, noticing the improvement in her German
accent

“No. He belongs to Gerda, the girl I share this flat with.”

“Have you known her long?”

“Only a week or two.”

“Whafs she like?”

“Not bad. As stingy as hell. I have to pay for practically
evetything.”

“It's nice here ”

58

"‘Do you think so? Yes, I suppose ifs all right. Better than
that hole in the Nollendorfstrasse, anyhow.”

“What made you leave? Did you and FrI. Schroeder have
a row?”

“No, not exactly. Only I got so sick of hearing her talk. She
nearly talked my head off. She s an awful old bore, really.”

“She's very fond of you.”

Sally shrugged her shoulders with a slight impatient listless
movement. Throughout this conversation, I noticed that she
avoided my eyes. There was a long pause. I felt puzzled and
vaguely embarrassed. I began to wonder how soon I could
make an excuse to go.

Then the telephone bell rang. Sally yawned, pulled the
instrument across on to her lap:

“Hilloo, who's there? Yes, its me. . . . No. , . . No. . . .
Ive really no idea. . . . Really 1 haven't! I'm to guess?” Her
nose wrinkled: “Is it Erwin? No? Paul? No? Wait a minute.
. . . Let me see. . .

“x\nd now, darling, I must fly!” cried Sally, when, at last,
the conversation was over: “I'm about two hours late al-
ready!”

“Got a new boy friend?”

But Sally ignored my grin. She ht a cigarette with a faint
expression of distaste.

“I've got to see a man on business,” she said briefly.

“And w’hen shall we meet again?”

“in have to see, darling. . . . Ive got such a lot on, fust
at present. ... I shall be out in the country" all day to-
morrow, and probably the day after. . . . Ill let you know.
... I may be going to FranWurt quite soon ”

“Have you got a job there?”

“No. Not exactly.” Sally's voice was brief, dismissing this
subject. “I've decided not to try for any film wwk mm the
autumn, anyhow. I shall take a thorough rest”

“You seem to have made a lot of new friends.”

Again, Sally's manner became vague, carefully casual:

“Yes, I suppose I have. . . . It s probably a reaction from

59

all those months at FrL Schroeder s, when I never saw a
soul”

"Well,” I couldn’t resist a malicious grin. "I hope for your
sake that none of your new friends have got their money in
the Darmstadter und National.”

"Why?” She was interested at once. "What’s the matter
with it?”

"Do you really mean to say you haven’t heard?”

"Of course not, I never read the papers, and I haven’t
been out to-day, yet.”

I told her the news of the crisis. At the end of it, she was
looking quite scared.

"But why on earth,” she exclaimed impatiently, "didn’t you
tell me all this before? It may be serious.”

“I’m sorry, Sally. I took it for granted that you’d know
already . . . especially as you seem to be moving in financial
circles, nowadays

But she ignored this little dig. She was frowning, deep in
her own thoughts:

“If it was very serious, Leo would have rung up and told
me . . she murmured at length. And this reflection ap-
peared to ease her mind considerably.

We walked out together to the comer of the street, where
Sally picked up a taxi.

"It's an awful nuisance living so far off,” she said. "I’m
probably going to get a car soon.”

“By the way,” she added just as we were parting, "what
was it like on Ruegen?”

“I bathed a lot ”

“Well, good-bye, darling. ITl see you sometime,”

“Good-bye, Sally. Enjoy yourself.”

About a week after this, Sally rang me up:

“Gan you come round at once, Chris? It’s very important
I want you to do me a favour ”

This time, also, I found Sally alone in the flat

60

'‘Do you want to earn some money, darling?* she greeted
me.

“Of course ”

“Splendid! You see, it s like this. . , ” She was in a fluffy
pink dressing- wrap and inclined to be breathless: “There s
a man I know who’s starting a magazine. It’s going to be
most terribly highbrow and artistic, with lots of mar\^ellous
modem photographs, ink-pots and girls’ heads upside down
— ^jnu know the sort of thing. . , . The point is, each number
is going to take a special country and kind of re\1ew it, with
articles about the manners and customs, and all that. . . .
Well, the first country they’re going to do is England and
they want me to wTite an article on the English Girl . . •
Of course, I haven’t the foggiest idea what to say, so what I
thought was: you could write the article in my name and
get the money — I only want not to disoblige this man who’s
editing the paper, because he may be terribly useful to me in
other wavs, later on. . .

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Oh, marvellous!”

“How soon do you want it done?”

“You see, darling, that’s the whole point. I must have it at
once. . . . Otherwise it’s no earthly use, because I promised
it four days ago and I simply must give it him this evening.
... It needn’t be very long. About five hundred words.”

“Well, ni do my best. . .

“Good. That’s wonderful. ... Sit down wherever you
like. Here’s some paper. You’ve got a pen? Oh, and here’s a
dictionary, in case there’s a word you can’t spell. ... Ill
just be having my bath.”

When, three-quarters of an hour later, Sally came In
dressed for the day, I had finished. Frankly, I was mther
pleased with my effort.

She read it through carefully, a slow frown gathering be-
tween her beautifully pencilled eyebrows. When she had
finished, she laid down the manuscript with a sigh:

“I’m soriy, Chris. It won’t do at all.”

61

“Won't do?” I was genuinely taken aback.

“Of course, I dare say it's very good from a literary point
of view, and all that. , .

“Well then, what's wrong with it?”

“Its not nearly snappy enough.” Sally was quite final. “It's
not the kind of thing tJais man wants, at all.”

I shrugged my shoulders; “I'm sorry, SaUy. I did my best.
But journalism isn't really in my line, you know.”

There was a resentful pause. My vanity was piqued.

“My goodness, I know who'll do it for me if I ask himl”
cried Sally, suddenly jumping up. “Why on earth didn't I
think of him before?” She grabbed the telephone and dialled
a number: “Oh, hilloo, Kurt darling. . . .”

In three minutes, she had explained all about the article.
Replacing the receiver on its stand, she announced tri-
umphantly: “That's marvellous! He's going to do it at once.
. . She paused impressively and added: “That was Kurt
Rosenthal.”

“Who's he?”

“You've never heard of him?” This annoyed Sallyj she pre-
tended to be immensely surprised: “I tliought you took an
interest in the cinema? He's miles the best young scenario
writer. He earns pots of money. He's only doing this as a
favour to me, of course. . . . He says he'll dictate it to his
secretary while he's shaving and then send it straight round
to the editor's flat. , . . He's marvellous!”

“Are you sure it'll be what the editor wants, this time?”

“Of course it will! Kurt's an absolute genius. He can do
anything. Just now, he's writing a novel in his spare time.
He' s so fearfully busy, he can only dictate it while he's having
breakfast He showed me the first few chapters, the other day.
Honestly, I think it's easily the best novel I've ever read.”

“Indeedr

“That's the sort of writer I admire,” Sally continued. She
was careful to avoid my eye. “He's terribly ambitious and
he works the whole time; and he can write anything — any-
thing you like: scenarios, novels, plays, poet^, advertise-

62

ments. . . . He s not a bit stiick-up about it either. Not like
these young men who, because they’ve written one book,
start talking about Art and imagining they’re the most won-
derful authors in the world. . . . They make me sick. . .

Irritated as I was with her, I couldn’t help laughing:

“Since when have you disapproved of me so violently,

Sallyr

“I don’t disapprove of you” — ^but she couldn’t look me in
the face — ^“not exactly.”

“I merely make you sick?”

“I don’t know what it is- * * You seem to have changed,
somehow. . .

“How have I changed?”

“It’s difficult to explain. . . . You don’t seem to have any
ener^ or want to get anywhere. You’re so dilettante. It
annoys me.”

“I’m sorry.” But my would-be facetious tone sounded
rather forced. Sally frowned down at her tiny black shoes.

“You must remember I’m a woman, Christopher. All
women like men to be strong and decided and following
out their careers. A woman wants to be motherly to a man
and protect his weak side, but he must have a strong side too,
which she can respect. ... If you ever care for a woman,
I don’t advise you to let her see that you’ve got no ambition.
Otherwise she’ll get to despise you.”

“Yes, I see. . . . And that’s tire principle on which you
dioose your friends — ^your new friends?”

She flared up at this:

“It’s very easy for you to sneer at my friends for having
good business heads. If they’ve got money, it’s because
they’ve worked for it. ... I suppose you consider yourself
better than they are?”

“Yes, Sally, since you ask me — ^if they’re at all as I imagine
them — I do ”

“There you go, Christopher! That’s typical of you. That’s
what annoys me about you: you’re conceited and la2y. If you
say things like that, you ought to be able to prove them ”

63

"‘How does one prove that one's better than somebody else?
Besides, that s not what I said. I said I considered myself
better — ^it s simply a matter of taste/'

Sally made no reply. She lit a cigarette, slightly frowning.

“You say I seem to have changed," I continued, “To be
quite frank. I've been thinking the same thing about j/ow."

Sally didn’t seem surprised: “Have you, Christopher?
Perhaps you're right. I don't know. ... Or perhaps we've
neither of us changed. Perhaps we're just seeing each other
as we really are. We're awfully different in lots of ways, you
know."

“Yes, I've noticed that."

“I think,” said Sally, smoking meditatively, her eyes on
her shoes, “that we may have sort of outgrown each other,
a bit."

“Perhaps we have. ...” I smiled: Sally's real meaning
was so obvious: “At any rate, we needn't quarrel about it,
need we?"

“Of course not, darling.”

There was a pause. Then I said that I must be going. We
were both rather embarrassed, now, and extra polite.

“Are you certain you won’t have a cup of coffee?"

“No, thanks awfully."

“Have some tea? It’s specially good. I got it as a present."

“No, thanks \^ery much indeed, Sally. I really must be get-
ting along."

“Must you?" She sounded, after all, rather relieved. “Be
sure and ring me up some time soon, won't you?"

“Yes, rather.”

It wasn't until I had actually left the house and was walk-
ing quickly away up the street that I realized how angrj^ and
ashamed I felt. What an utter little bitch she is, I thought.
After all, I told myself, it's only what I've always known she
was Hke— right from the start. No, that wasn't true: I hadn't
known it I'd flattered myself — ^why not be frank about it? —
that she was fond of me* Well, I'd been wrong, it seemed;

64

but could I blame her for that? Yet I did blame her, I was
furious with her; nothing would have pleased me more, at
that moment, than to see her soundly whipped. Indeed, I
was so absurdly upset that I began to wonder whether I
hadn't, all this time, in my own peculiar way, been in love
with Sally myself.

But no, it wasn't love either — it was worse. It was the
cheapest, most childish kind of wounded vanity. Not that I
cared a curse what she thought of my article — well, just a
litde, perhaps, but only a very little; my literary self-conceit
was proof against anything she could say — it was her criti-
cism of myself. The awful sexual flair women have for taking
the stuffing out of a man! It was no use telling myself that
Sally had the vocabulary and mentality of a twelve-year-old
schoolgirl, that she was altogether comic and preposterous;
it was no use — I only knew that Fd been somehow made to
feel a sham. Wasn't I a bit of a sham an\way — though not
for her ridiculous reasons — with my arty talk to lady pupils
and my newiy-acquired parlour-socialism? Yes, I was. But
she knew nothing about that. I could quite easily have im-
pressed her. That w^as the most humiliating part of the whole
business; 1 had mis-managed our interview from the very
beginning. I had blushed and squabbled, instead of being
wonderful, convincing, superior, fatherly, mature. I had
tried to compete with her beastily little Kurt on his own
ground; just the very thing, of course, which Sally had wanted
and expected me to do! After all these months, I had made
the one really fatal mistake — I had let her see that I w^as not
only incompetent but jealous. Yes, vidgarly jealous. I could
have kicked myself. The mere thought made me prickly with
shame from head to foot.

Well, the mischief was done, now% There w^as only one
thing for it, and that was to forget the whole affair. And of
course it would be impossible for me ever to see SaUy again.

It must have been about ten days after this that I was
visited, one morning, by a small pale dark-haired young man

65

who spoke American fluently with a slight foreign accent
His name, he told me, was George P. Sandars. He had seen
my English-teaching advertisement in the B.Z am Mittag.

"\lTien would you like to begin?” I asked him.

But the young man shook his head hastily. Oh no, he
hadn^t come to take lessons, at all. Rather disappointed, I
waited politely for him to explain the reason of his visit. He
seemed in no hurry to do this. Instead, he accepted a
cigarette, sat down and began to talk chattily about the
States. Had I ever been to Chicago? No? Well, had I heard of
James L. Schraube? I hadn’t? The young man uttered a faint
sigh. He had the air of being very patient with me, and with
the world in general. He had evidently been over the same
ground with a good many other people already. James L.
Schraube, he explained, was a very big man in Chicago: he
ovmed a whole chain of restaurants and several cinemas.
He had two large country houses and a yacht on Lake
Michigan. And he possessed no less than four cars. By this
time, I was beginning to drum with my fingers on the table.
A pained expression passed over the young mans face. He
excused himself for taking up my valuable time; he had only
told me about Mr. Schraube, he said, because he thought I
might be interested — his tone implied a gentle rebuke — and
because Mr. Schraube, had I known him, would certainly
have vouched for his friend Sandars’ respectability. How-
ever ... it couldn’t be helped . . . well, would I lend him
two hundred marks? He needed the money in order to start
a business; it was a unique opportunit}% which he would
miss altogether if he didn’t find the money before to-morrow
morning. He would pay me back within three days. If I
gave him the money now he would return that same evening
with papers to prove that the whole thing was perfectly
genuine.

No? Ah well. . . . He didn’t seem unduly surprised. Pie
rose to go at once, like a business man who has wasted a
valuable twenty minutes on a prospective customer: the loss,
he contrived politely to imply, was mine, not his. Already at

66

the door, he paused for a moment: Did I happen, by any
chance, to know some film actresses? He was travelling, as
a sideline, in a new kind of face-cream specially invented to
keep the skin from getting dried up by the studio lights. It
was being used by all the HoUyw^ood stars already, but in
Europe it was still quite unknown. If he could find half a
dozen actresses to use and recommend it, they should have
free sample jars and permanent supplies at half-price.

After a moment’s hesitation, I gave him Sally’s address. I
don’t know quite why I did it. Partly, of course, to get rid
of the young man, who showed signs of wishing to sit down
again and continue our conversation. Partly, perhaps, out of
malice. It would do Sally no harm to have to put up with his
chatter for an hour or two: she had told me that she liked
men with ambition. Perhaps she would even get a jar of the
face-cream — if it existed at all. And if he touched her for the
two hundred marks — ^well, that wouldn’t matter so very
much, either. He couldn’t deceive a baby.

“But whatever you do,” I warned him, “don’t say that I
sent you.”

He agreed to this at once, with a slight smile. He must
have had his own explanation of my request, for he didn’t
appear to find it in the least strange. He raised his hat
politely as he went downstairs. By the next morning, I had
forgotten about his visit altogether.

A few days later, Sally herself rang me up. I had been
called away in the middle of a lesson to answer the telephone
and was very ungracious.

“Oh, is that you, Christopher darling?”

“Yes. It’s meJ*

“I say, can vou come round and see me at once?*

“No.”

“Oh. . . ” My refusal evidently gave Sally a shock. There
was a little pause, then she continued, in a tone of unwonted
humility: “1 suppose you Ve most terribly busy?”

67

^es. I am "

‘Well . . . would you mind frightfully if I came round
to see you?*'

nVhat aboutr

"Darling” — Sally sounded positively desperate — ^"I cant
possibly explain to you over the telephone. . . . Ifs some-
thing really serious.”

"Oh, I see” — I tried to make this as nasty as possible —
"another magazine article, I suppose?”

Nevertheless, as soon as Fd said it, we both had to laugh.

"Chris, you are a brute!” Sally tinkled gaily along 3ie
wire: then checked herself abruptly: "No, darling — ^this
time I promise you: it’s most terribly serious, really and truly
it is.” She paused; tlien impressively added: “And you’re the
only person who can possibly help.”

“Oh, all right. ...” I was more than half melted already.
"Come in an hour.”

"Well, darling. I’ll begin at the very beginning, shall I?
• . . Yesterday morning, a man rang me up and asked if he
could come round and see me. He said it was on very im-
portant business; and as he seemed to know my name and
everything of course I said: Yes, certainly, come at once.
... So he came. He told me his name was Rakowski — ^Paul
Rakowski — and that he was a European agent of Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer and that he’d come to make me an oflEer. He
said they were looking out for an English actress who spoke
German to act in a comedy film they were going to shoot on
the Italian Riviera. He was most frightfully convincing about
it all; he told me who the director was and the camera-man
and the art-director and who’d written the script. Naturally,
I hadn’t heard of any of them before. But that didn’t seem
so surprising: in fact, it really made it sound much more real,
because most people would have chosen one of the names
you see in the newspapers. . . , Anyhow, he said that, now
he’ d seen me, he was sure I’d be just the person for the part,

68

and he could practically promise it to me, as long as the
test was all right ... so of course I was simply thrilled and
I asked when the test would be and he said not for a day or
two, as he had to make arrangements with the Ufa people.
... So then we began to talk about Holljavood and he told
me all kinds of stories — suppose they could have been
things he’d read in fan magazines, but somehow Vm pretty
sure they weren’t — and then he told me how they make
sound-effects and how they do the trick-work; he was really
most awfully interesting and he certainly must have been
inside a great many studios. . . . Anyhow, when we’d fin-
ished talking about Hollywood, he started to tell me about
the rest of America and the people he knew, and about the
gangsters and about New York. He said he’d only just arrived
from there and all his luggage was still in the customs at
Hamburg. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking to myself
that it seemed rather queer he was so shabbily dressed; but
after he said that, of course, I thought it was quite natural.
, . . Well — now you must promise not to laugh at this part
of the story, Chris, or I simply shan’t be able to tell you —
presently he started making the most passionate love to me.
At first I was rather angiy^ with him, for sort of miring busi-
ness with pleasure; but then, after a bit, I didn’t mind so
much: he was quite attractive, in a Russian kind of way.
. . , And the end of it was, he invited me to have dinner
with him; so we w’ent to Horcher’s and had one of the most
mar\^ellous dinners I’ve ever had in my life (that’s one con-
solation); only, when the bill came, he said ‘Oh, by the
way, darling, could you lend me three hundred marks until
to-morrow? Ive only got dollar bills on me, and I’ll have
to get them changed at the Bank.’ So, of course, I gave them
to him; as bad luck would have it, I had quite a lot of money
on me, that evening. . . . And then be said; ‘Let’s have a
bottle of champagne to celebrate your film contract’ So I
agreed, and I suppose by that time I must have been pretty
tight because when he asked me to spend the night with him,
I said Yes* We went to one of those little hotels in the Augs-

69

burgerstrasse — I forget its name, but I can find it again,
easily. ... It was the most ghastly hole. . . . Anyhow, I
don t remember much more about what happened that eve-
ning. It was early this morning that I started to think about
things properly, while he was still asleep; and I began to
wonder if everything was really quite all right. ... I hadn't
noticed his underclothes before: they gave me a bit of a
shock. You'd expect an important film man to wear silk next
his skin, wouldn’t you? Well, liis were the most extraor-
dinary kind of stuff Hke camel-hair or something; they looked
as if they might have belonged to John the Baptist. And then
he had a regular Woolworth’s tin clip for his tie. It wasn’t
so much that his things were shabby; but you could see they’d
never been any good, even when they were new. ... I
was just making up my mind to get out of bed and take a
look inside his pockets, when he woke up and it was too late.
So we ordered breakfast. ... I don’t know if he thought
I w^as madly in love with him by this time and wouldn’t
notice, or whether he just couldn’t be bothered to go on
pretending, but this morning he was like a completely differ-
ent person — just a common little guttersnipe. He ate his jam
off die blade of his knife, and of course most of it went on
to the sheets. And he sucked the insides out of the eggs with
a most terrific squelching noise. I couldn’t help laughing
at him, and that made him quite cross. . . . Then he said;
1 must have beer!’ Well, I said, all right; ring down to the
office and ask for some. To tell you the truth, I was beginning
to be a bit frightened of him. He’d started to scowl in the
most cavemannish way; I felt sure he must be mad. So I
thought I’d humour him as much as I could. . . . Anyhow,
he seemed to think I’d made quite a good suggestion, and he
picked up the telephone and had a long conversation and got
awfully angry, because he said they refused to send beer up
to the rooms, I realize now that he must have been holding
the hook all the time and just acting; but he did it most
awfully wen, and anyhow I was much too scared to notice
things much. I thought he’d probably start murdering me

70

because he couldn’t get his beer. . . . However, he took it
quite quietly. He said he must get dressed and go downstairs
and fetch it himself. All right, I said. . . . Well, I waited
and waited and he didn’t come back. So at last I rang the
bell and asked the maid if she’d seen him go out. And she
said: *Oh yes, the gentleman paid the bill and went
away about an hour ago. ... He said you weren’t to be
disturbed.’ I was so surprised, I just said: ‘Oh, right,
thanks. . . .’ The funny thing was, I’d so absolutely made up
my mind by this time that he was a loony that I’d stopped
suspecting him of being a swindler. Perhaps that was what
he wanted. . . . Anyhow, he wasn’t such a loony, after all,
because, when I looked in my bag, I found he’d helped him-
self to all the rest of my money, as well as the change from
the three hundred marks I’d lent him the night before. . . .
What really annoys me about the whole business is that I bet
he thinks I’ll be ashamed to go to the police. Well, I’ll just
show him he’s wrong

“I say, Sally, what exactly did this young man look like?”

“He was about your height. Pale. Dark. You could tell he
wasn’t a born American; he spoke with a foreign accent

“Can you remember if he mentioned a man named
Schraube, who lives in Chicago?”

“Let’s see . . . Yes, of course he did! He talked about him
a lot. , . . But, Chris, how on earth did you know?”

“Well, it’s like this. . . . Look here, Sally, I’ve got a most
awful confession to make to you. ... I don’t know if you’ll
ever forgive me. . . /’

We went to the Alexanderplatz that same afternoon.

The interview was even more embarrassing than I had
expected. For myself at any rate. Sally, if she felt uncom-
fortable, did not show it by so much as the movement of
an eyelid. She detailed the facts of the case to the two be-
spectacled police officials with such brisk bright matter-of-
factness that one might have supposed she had come to

71

complain about a strayed lapdog or an umbrella lost in a bus.
The two officials — both obviously fathers of families — ^were
at first inclined to be shocked. They dipped their pens ex-
cessively in the violet ink, made nervous inhibited circular
movements with their elbows, before beginning to write, and
w’ere very curt and gruff.

“Now about this hotel/’ said the elder of them sternly:
“I suppose you knew, before going there, that it was an
hotel of a certain kind?”

“Well, you didn’t expect us to go to the Bristol, did you?”
Sally’s tone was very mild and reasonable: “They wouldn’t
have let us in there without luggage, an3Avay.”

“Ah, so you had no luggage?” The younger one pounced
upon this fact triumphantly, as of supreme importance. His
violet copperplate police-hand began to travel steadily across
a ruled sheet of foolscap paper. Deeply inspired by his theme,
he paid not the slightest attention to Sally’s retort:

“I don’t usually pack a suitcase when a man asks me out
to dinner.”

The elder one caught the point, however, at once:

“So it wasn’t till you were at the restaurant that this young
man invited you to — er — accompany him to the hotel?”

“It wasn’t till after dinner.”

“My dear young lady,” the elder one sat back in his chair,
very much the sarcastic father, “may I enquire whether it is
your usual custom to accept invitations of this kind from
perfect strangers?”

Sally smiled sweetly. She was innocence and candour it-
self:

“But, you see, Herr Kommissar, he wasn’t a perfect stranger.
He was my fiance.”

That made both of them sit up with a jerk. The younger
one even made a small blot in the middle of his virgin page
— ^the only blot, perhaps, to be found in all the spotless dos-
siers of the Polizeipr^idium.

“You mean to tell me, FrI. Bowles” — ^but in spite of his
gruffness, there was already a gleam in the elder one’s eye —

72

“You mean to tell me that you became engaged to this man
when you'd only known him a single afternoon?”

“Certainly.”

“Isn't that, well — ^rather unusual?”

“I suppose it is,” Sally seriously agreed. “But nowadays,
you know, a girl can't aiEord to keep a man waiting. If he
asks her once and she refuses him, he may try somebody
else. It's all these surplus women

At this, the elder official frankly exploded. Pushing back his
chair, he laughed himself quite purple in the face. It was
nearly a minute before he could speak at all. The young one
was much more decorous; he produced a large handkerchief
and pretended to blow his nose. But the nose-blowing de-
veloped into a kind of sneeze which became a gufEaw; and
soon he too had abandoned all attempt to take Sally seriously.
The rest of the interview was conducted with comic-opera
informality, accompanied by ponderous essays in gallantry.
The elder official, particularly, became quite daring; I think
they were both sorry that I was present. They wanted her to
themselves.

“Now don’t you worry, Frl. Bowles,” they told her, patting
her hand at parting, “we'll find him for you, if we have to
turn Berlin inside out to do it!”

“Well!” I exclaimed admiringly, as soon as we were out
of earshot, “you do know how to handle them, I must say!”

SaUy smiled dreamily: she was feeling very pleased with
herself: “How do you mean, exactly, darling?”

“You know as well as I do — getting them to laugh like
that: telling them he was your fiance! It was really inspired!”

But Sally didn’t laugh. Instead, she coloured a little, look-
ing down at her feet. A comicaUy guilty, childish expression
came over her face:

“You see, Chris, it happened to be quite true

“True!”

“Yes, darling ” Now, for the first time, Sally was really

73

embarrassed: she began speaking very fast: “I simply
couldn’t tell you this morning: after everything that’s hap-
pened, it would have sounded too idiotic for words. ... He
asked me to marry him while we were at the restaurant, and
I said Yes. ... You see, I thought that, being in films, he
was probably quite used to quick engagements, like that:
after all, in HoU}^ood, it’s quite the usual thing. . . . And,
as he was an American, I thought we could get divorced again
easily, any time we wanted to. . . . And it would have been
a good thing for my career — I mean, if he’d been genuine —
wouldn’t it? . . . We were to have got married to-day, if it
could have been managed. ... It seems funny to think of,
now

*'But Sally!” I stood still. I gaped at her. I had to laugh:
"Well really . . . You know, you're the most extraordinary
creature I ever met in my life!”

Sally giggled a little, like a naughty child which has unin-
tentionally succeeded in amusing the grown-ups:

"I always told you I was a bit mad, didn’t I? Now perhaps
you’U believe it

It was more than a week before the police could give us
any news. Then, one morning, two detectives called to see
me. A young man answering to our description had been
traced and was under observation. The police knew his ad-
dress, but wanted me to identify him before making the
arrest. Would I come round with them at once to a snack-
bar in the Kleiststrasse? He was to be seen there, about this
time, almost every day. I should be able to point him out to
them in the crowd and leave again at once, without any fuss
or unpleasantness.

I didn’t like the idea much, but there was no getting out
of it now. The snack-bar, when we arrived, was crowded,
for this was the lunch-hour. I caught sight of the young man
almost immediately: he was standing at the counter, by the
tea-um, cup in hand. Seen thus, alone and off his guard, he

74

seemed rather pathetic: he looked shabbier and far younger
— a mere boy. I very nearly said: "He isn t here ” But what
would have been the use? They’d have got him, anyway. ‘Tes,
that’s him.” I told the detectives. "Over there.” They nodded.
I turned and hurried away down the street, feeling guilty
and telling myself: I’ll never help the police again.

A few days later, Sally came round to tell me the rest of
the story: "I had to see him, of course. ... I felt an awful
brute; he looked so wretched. All he said was: 1 thought
you were my friend.’ I’d have told him he could keep the
money, but he’d spent it all, anyway. . . . The police said
he really had been to the States, but he isn’t American; he’s
a Pole. ... He won’t be prosecuted, that’s one comfort. The
doctor’s seen him and he’s going to be sent to a home. I hope
they treat him decently there. . .

"So he was a loony, after aU?”

"I suppose so. A sort of mild one, . . Sally smiled. "Not
very flattering to me, is it? Oh, and Chris, do you know how
old he was? You’d never guess!”

"Round about twenty, I should think.”

"Sixteen!”

"Oh, rot!”

“Yes, honestly. . . . The case would have to have been
tried in the Children’s Court!”

We both laughed. “You know, Sally,” I said, “what I really
like about you is that you’re so awfully easy to take in. People
who never get taken in are so drearj^”

"So you still like me, Chris darling?”

“Yes, Sally. I still like you.”

“I was afraid you’d be angry with me — ^about the other
day.”

“I was. Very.”

“But you’re not, now?”

“No. . . I don’t think so.”

"It’s no good my trying to apologize, or explain, or any-

75

thing, ... I get like that, sometimes. ... I expect you
understand, don t you, Chiis?’'

“Yes,” I said. “I expect I do.'’

I have never seen her since. About a fortnight later, just
when I was thinking I ought really to ring her up, I got a
post-card from Paris: “Arrived here last night. Will write
properly to-morrow. Heaps of love.” No letter followed. A
month after this, another post-card arrived from Rome, giving
no address: “Am writing in a day or two,” it said. That was
six years ago.

So now I am writing to her.

When you read this, Sally — ^if you ever do — ^please accept
it as a tribute, the sincerest I can pay, to yourself and to our
friendship.

And send me another post-card.

ON RUEGEN ISLAND
(Summer 1931)

I WAXE early and go out to sit on the verandah in my
pyjamas. The wood casts long shadows over the fields. Birds
call with sudden uncanny violence, like alarm-clocks going
off. The birch-trees hang down laden over the rutted, sandy
earth of the country road. A soft bar of cloud is moving up
from the line of trees along the lake. A man with a bicycle
is watching his horse graze on a patch of grass by the path;
he wants to disentangle the horse s hoof from its tether-rope.

76

He pushes the horse with both hands, but it won t budge.
And now an old woman in a shawl comes walking with a little
boy. The boy wears a dark sailor suit; he is very pale and his
neck is bandaged. They soon turn back. A man passes on a
bicycle and shouts something to the man with the horse. His
voice rings out, quite clear yet unintelligible, in the morning
stillness. A cock crows. The creak of the bicycle, going past.
The dew on the white table and chairs in the garden arbour,
and dripping from the heavy lilac. Another cock crows, much
louder and nearer. And I think I can hear the sea, or very
distant bells.

The village is hidden in the woods, away up to the left.
It consists almost entirely of boarding-houses, in various
styles of seaside architecture — ^sham Moorish, old Bavarian,
Taj Mahal, and the rococo doll s house, with white fretwork
balconies. Behind the woods is the sea. You can reach it
without going through the village, by a zig-zag path, which
brings you out abruptly to the edge of some sandy cliffs,
with the beach below you, and the tepid shallow Baltic lying
almost at your feet. This end of the bay is quite deserted;
the official bathing-beach is round the comer of the headland.
The white onion-domes of the Strand Restaurant at Baabe
wobble in the distance, behind fluid waves of heat, a kilo-
metre away.

In the wood are rabbits and adders and deer. Yesterday
morning I saw a roe being chased by a Borzoi dog, right
across the fields and in amongst the trees. The dog couldn't
catch the roe, although it seemed to be going much the
faster of the two, moving in long graceful bounds, while the
roe went bucketing over the earth with wild rigid jerks, like
a grand piano bewitched.

There are two people staying in this house, besides myself.
One of them is an Englishman, named Peter Wilkinson,
about my own age. The other is a German working-class boy
from Berlin, named Otto Nowak. He is sixteen or seventeen
years old,

Peter — ^as I already call him; we got rather tight the first

77

evening, and quickly made friends — is thin and dark and
ner\’Ous. He wears hom-rimmed glasses. When he gets ex-
cited, he digs his hands down between his knees and clenches
them together. Thick veins stand out at the sides of his
temples. He trembles all over with suppressed, nervous
laughter, until Otto, rather irritated, exclaims: “Mensch, reg^
Didi bloss nicht so aufr

Otto has a face like a very ripe peach. His hair is fair and
thick, growing low on his forehead. He has small sparkling
eyes, full of naughtiness, and a wide, disarming grin, which
is much too innocent to be true. When he grins, two large
dimples appear in his peach-bloom cheeks. At present, he
makes up to me assiduously, flattering me, laughing at my
jokes, never missing an opportunity of giving me a crafty,
understanding wink. I think he looks upon me as a potential
ally in his dealings with Peter.

This morning w^e all bathed together. Peter and Otto are
busy building a large sand fort. I lay and watched Peter as
he worked furiously, enjoying the glare, digging away
savagely with his child's spade, like a chain-gang convict
under the eyes of an armed warder. Throughout the long,
hot morning, he never sat still for a moment. He and Otto
swam, dug, wrestled, ran races or played witli a rubber foot-
ball, up and down the sands. Peter is skinny but wiry. In his
games with Otto, he holds his own, it seems, only by an im-
ense, furious effort of will. It is Peter's will against Otto's
body. Otto is his whole body; Peter is only his head. Otto
moves fluidly, effortlessly; his gestures have the savage, un-
conscious grace of a cruel, elegant animal. Peter drives him-
self about, lashing his stiff, ungraceful body with the whip of
his merciless will.

Otto is outrageously conceited. Peter has bought him a
chest-expander, and, with this, he exercises solemnly at all
hours of the day. Coming into their bedroom, after lunch,
to look for Peter, I found Otto wrestling with the expander
like Laocoon, in front of the looking-glass, aU alone: "Look,
Christoph!" he gasped. "You see, I can do it! All five strands!"

78

Otto certainly has a superb pair of shoulders and chest for
a boy of his age — ^but his body is nevertheless somehow
slightly ridiculous. The beautiful ripe lines of the torso taper
away too suddenly to his rather absurd little buttocks and
spindly, immature legs. And these struggles with the chest-
expander are daily making him more and more top-heavy.

This evening Otto had a touch of sunstroke, and went to
bed early, with a headache. Peter and I walked up to the
village, alone. In the Bavarian cafe, where the band makes
a noise like Hell unchained, Peter bawled into my ear the
story of his life.

Peter is the youngest of a family of four. He has two sisters,
both married. One of the sisters lives in the country and
hunts. The other is what the newspapers call “a popular
society hostess.” Peter s elder brother is a scientist and ex-
plorer. He has been on expeditions to the Congo, the New
Hebrides and the Great Barrier Reef. He plays chess, speaks
with the voice of a man of sixty, and has never, to the best
of Peter s belief, performed the sexual act. The only mem-
ber of the family with whom Peter is at present on speaking
terms is his hunting sister, but they seldom meet, because
Peter hates his brother-in-law.

Peter was delicate, as a boy. He did not go to a preparatory
school but, when he was thirteen, his father sent him to a
public school. His father and mother had a row about this
which lasted until Peter, with his mother s encouragement,
developed heart trouble and had to be removed at the end
of his second term. Once escaped, Peter began to hate his
mother for having petted and coddled him into a funk. She
saw that he could not forgive her and so, as Peter was the
only one of her children whom she cared for, she got ill her-
self and soon afterwards died.

It was too late to send Peter back to school again, so Mr,
Wilkinson engaged a tutor. The tutor was a very high-church
young man who intended to become a priest. He took cold

79

baths in winter and had crimpy hair and a Grecian jaw. Mr.
Wilkinson disliked him from the first, and the elder brother
made satirical remarks, so Peter threw himself passionately
on to the tutor s side. The two of them went for walking-
tours in the Lake District and discussed the meaning of the
Sacrament amidst austere moorland scenery. This kind of
talk got them, inevitably, into a complicated emotional
tangle which was abruptly unravelled, one evening, during
a fearful row in a bam. Next morning, the tutor left, leaving
a ten-page letter behind him. Peter meditated suicide. He
heard later indirectly that the tutor had grown a moustache
and gone out to Australia. So Peter got another tutor, and
finally went up to Oxford.

Hating his father s business and his brother s science, he
made music and literature into a religious cult. For the first
year, he liked Oxford very much indeed. He went out to tea
parties and ventured to talk. To his pleasure and surprise,
people appeared to be listening to what he said. It wasn’t
until he had done this often that he began to notice their air
of slight embarrassment. "Somehow or other,” said Peter,
"I always struck the wrong note.”

Meanwhile, at home, in the big Mayfair house, with its
four bath-rooms and garage for three cars, where there was
always too much to eat, the Wilkinson family was slowly
falling to pieces, like something gone rotten. Mr. Wilkinson
with his diseased kidneys, his whisky, and his knowledge of
"handling men,” was angry and confused and a bit pathetic.
He snapped and growM at his children when they passed
near him, like a surly old dog. At meals nobody ever spoke.
They avoided each other s eyes, and hurried upstairs after-
wards to write letters, full of hatred and satire, to intimate
friends. Only Peter had no friend to write to. He shut himself
up in his tasteless, expensive bedroom and read and read.

And now it was the same at Oxford. Peter no longer went
to tea parties. He worked all day, and, just before the ex-
aminations, he had a nervous breakdown. The doctor ad-
vised a complete change of scene, other interests, Peter s

80

father let him play at farming for six months in Devonshire,
then he began to talk of the business. Mr, Wilkinson had
been unable to persuade any of his other children to take
even a polite interest in the source of their incomes. They
were all unassailable in their diJfferent worlds. One of his
daughters was about to marry into the peerage, the other
frequently hunted with the Prince of Wales. His elder son
read papers to the Royal Geographical Society. Only Peter
hadn't any justification for his e.xistence. The other children
behaved selfishly, but knew what they wanted. Peter also be-
haved selfishly, and didn’t know.

However, at the critical moment, Peter s uncle, his mother’s
brother, died. This uncle lived in Canada. He had seen Peter
once as a child and had taken a fancy to him, so he left him
all his money, not very much, but enough to live on, com-
fortably.

Peter went to Paris and began studying music. His teacher
told him that he would never be more than a good second-
rate amateur, but he only worked all the harder. He worked
merely to avoid thinking, and had another nervous break-
down, less serious than at first. At this time, he was con-
vinced that he would soon go mad. He paid a visit to London
and found only his father at home. They had a furious quarrel
on the first evening; thereafter, they hardly exchanged a
word. After a week of silence and huge meals, Peter had a
mild attack of homicidal mania. All through breakfast, he
couldn’t take his eyes off a pimple on his father’s throat. He
was fingering the bread-knffe. Suddenly the left side of his
face began to twitch. It twitched and twitched, so that he
had to cover his cheek with his hand. He felt certain that
his father had noticed this, and was intentionally refusing
to remark on it — ^was, in fact, deliberately torturing him. At
last, Peter could stand it no longer. He jumped up and
rushed out of the room, out of the house, into the garden,
where he flung himself face downwards on the wet lawn.
There he lay, too frightened to move. After a quarter of an
hour, the twitching stopped.

SI

That evening Peter walked along Regent Street and picked
up a whore. They went back togedier to the girl’s room, and
talked for hours. He told her the whole story of his life at
home, gave her ten pounds and left her without even kissing
her. Next morning a mysterious rash appeared on his left
thigh. The doctor seemed at a loss to explain its origin, but
prescribed some ointment. The rash became fainter, but did
not altogether disappear until last month. Soon after the
Regent Street episode, Peter also began to have trouble with
his left eye.

For some time already, he had played with the idea of con-
sulting a psychoanalyst. His final choice was an orthodox
Freudian with a sleepy, ill-tempered voice and very large
feet. Peter took an immediate dislike to him, and told him so.
The Freudian made notes on a piece of paper, but did not
seem offended. Peter later discovered that he was quite unin-
terested in anything except Chinese art. They met three
times a week, and each visit cost two guineas.

After six months Peter abandoned the Freudian, and
started going to a new analyst, a Finnish lady with white hair
and a bright conversational manner. Peter found her easy to
talk to. He told her, to the best of his ability, everything he
had ever done, ever said, ever thought, or ever dreamed.
Sometimes, in moments of discouragement, he told her
stories which were absolutely untrue, or anecdotes collected
from case-books. Afterwards, he would confess to these lies,
and they would discuss his motives for telling them, and
agree that they were very interesting. On red-letter nights
Peter would have a dream, and this gave them a topic of
conversation for the next few weeks. The analysis lasted
nearly two years, and was never completed.

This year Peter got bored with the Finnish lady. He heard
of a good man in Berlin. Well, why not? At any rate, it would
be a change. It was also an economy. The Berlin man only
cost fifteen marks a visit.

‘‘And you re still going to him?’’ I asked.

"No , , Peter smiled. “I can’t afford to, you see.*'

82

Last month, a day or two after his arrival, Peter went out
to Wannsee, to bathe. The water was still chilly, and there
were not many people about. Peter had noticed a boy who
was turning somersaults by himself, on the sand. Later the
boy came up and asked him for a match. They got into con-
versation. It was Otto Nowak.

“Otto was quite horrified when I told him about the
analyst. ‘WTiat!' he said, you give that man fifteen marks a
day just for letting you talk to him! You give me ten marks
and ni talk to you aU day, and all night as well!’ ” Peter
began to shake all over with laughter, flushing scarlet and
wringing his hands.

Curiously enough, Otto wasnT being altogether prepos-
terous when he offered to take the analyst’s place. Like many
very animal people, he has considerable instinctive powers of
hesJing — when he chooses to use them. At such times, his
treatment of Peter is unerringly correct. Peter will be sitting
at the table, hunched up, his downward-curving mouth
lined with childhood fears: a perfect case-picture of his
twisted, expensive upbringing. Then in comes Otto, grins,
dimples, knocks over a chair, slaps Peter on the back, rubs
his hands and exclaims fatuously: Va, ja ... so ist die
Sacher And, in a moment, Peter is transformed. He relaxes,
begins to hold himself naturally; the tightness disappears
from his mouth, his eyes lose their hunted look. As long as
the spell lasts, he is just like an ordinary person.

Peter tells me that, before he met Otto, he was so terrified
of infection that he would wash his hands with carbolic
after picking up a cat. Nowadays, he often drinks out of the
same glass as Otto, uses his sponge, and will share the same
plate.

Dancing has begun at the Kurhaus and the cafe on the
lake. We saw the announcements of the first dance two days
ago, while we were taking our evening walk up the main
street of the village. I noticed that Otto glanced at the poster

83

wistfully, and that Peter had seen him do this. Neither of
them, however, made any comment.

Yesterday was chilly and wet. Otto suggested that we
should hire a boat and go fishing on the lake: Peter was
pleased with this plan, and agreed at once. But when we
had waited three quarters of an hour in the drizzle for a
catch, he began to get irritable. On the way back to the
shore, Otto kept splashing with his oars — at first because he
couldn’t row properly, later merely to annoy Peter. Peter got
ver\’ angiy indeed, and swore at Otto, who sulked.

After supper, Otto announced that he was going to dance
at the Kurhaus. Peter took this without a word, in ominous
silence, the comers of his mouth beginning to drop; and
Otto, either genuinely unconscious of his disapproval or
deliberately overlooking it, assumed that the matter was
settled.

After he had gone out, Peter and I sat upstairs in my cold
room, listening to the pattering of the rain on the window:

‘1 thought it couldn’t last,” said Peter gloomily. ‘‘This is
the beginning. You’ll see.”

“Nonsense, Peter. The beginning of what? It’s quite natural
that Otto should want to dance sometimes. You mustn’t be
so possessive.”

“Oh, I know, I know. As usual, I’m being utterly unreason-
able. ... All the same, this is the beginning. . .

Rather to my own surprise the event proved me right. Otto
arrived back from the Kurhaus before ten o’clock. He had
been disappointed. There had been very few people there,
and the band was poor:

“111 never go again,” he added, with a languishing smile
at me. “From now on I’ll stay every evening with you and
Christoph. It’s much more fun when we’re all three together,
isn’t itF’

Yesterday morning, while we were lying in our fort on
the beach, a little fair-haired man with ferrety blue eyes and
a small mous^che came up to us and asked us to join in a

84

game with him. Otto, always over-enthusiastic about stran-
gers, accepted at once, so iiat Peter and I had either to be
rude or follow his example.

The little man, after introducing himself as a surgeon
from a Berlin hospital, at once took command, assigning to us
the places where we were to stand. He was very firm about
this — instantly ordering me back when I attempted to edge
a little nearer, so as not to have such a long distance to throw.
Then it appeared that Peter was throwing in quite the wrong
way: the little doctor stopped the game in order to demon-
strate this, Peter was amused at first, and then rather an-
noyed. He retorted with considerable rudeness, but the doc-
tor s skin wasn’t pierced. “You hold yourself so stiff,” he
explained, smiling. “That is an error. You should relax com-
pletely — like this — ^you understand? Now try again, and I
will keep my hand on your shoulder-blade to see w^^hether you
really relax. . . . No. Again you do not!”

He seemed delighted, as if this failure of Peter’s were a
special triumph for his own methods of teaching. His eye
met Otto’s. Otto grinned understandingly.

Our meeting with the doctor put Peter in a bad temper
for the rest of the day. In order to tease him, Otto pretended
to like the doctor very much: “That’s the sort of chap I’d
like to have for a friend,” he said with a spiteful smile. “A
real sportsman! You ought to take up sport, Peter! Then
you’d have a figure like he has!”

Had Peter been in another mood, this remark would prob-
ably have made him smile. As it was, he got very angry:
“You’d better go off with your doctor now, if you like him so
much!”

Otto grinned teasingly. “He hasn’t asked me to — ^yet!”

Yesterday evening, Otto went out to dance at the Kurhaus
and didn’t return till late.

There are now a good many summer visitors to the village.
The bathing-beach by the pier, with its array of banners, be-
gins to look like a mediaeval camp. Each family has its own

85

enormous hooded wicker beach-chair, and each chair flies
a little flag. There are the German city-flags — ^Hamburg, Han-
over, Dresden, Rostock and Berlin, as well as the National,
Republican and Nazi colours. Each chair is encircled by a
low sand bulwark upon which the occupants have set in-
scriptions in fir-cones: Waldesruh. Familie Walter. Stahlhelm.
Heii Hitler! Many of the forts are also decorated with the
Nazi swastika. The other morning I saw a child of about five
years old, stark naked, marching along all by himself with a
swastika flag over his shoulder and singing ‘‘Deutschland
uher alles!’

The little doctor fairly revels in this atmosphere. Nearly
ever)?’ morning he arrives, on a missionary visit, to our fort.
‘Tfou really ought to come round to the other beach,” he tells
us. ‘Its much more amusing there. Td introduce you to some
nice girls. The young people here are a magnificent lot! I, as
a doctor, know how to appreciate them. The other day I was
over at Hiddensee. Nothing but Jews! Its a pleasure to get
back here and see real Nordic types!”

“Let s go to the other beach,” urged Otto. “It’s so dull here.
There’s hardly anyone about.”

“You can go if you like,” Peter retorted with angry sarcasm;
“I’m afraid I should be rather out of place. I had a grand-
mother who was partly Spanish.”

But the little doctor won’t let us alone. Our opposition
and more or less openly expressed dislike seem actually to
fascinate him. Otto is always betraying us into his hands. One
day, when the doctor was speaking enthusiastically about
Hitler, Otto said, “It’s no good your talking like that to Chris-
toph, Herr Doktor. He’s a communist!”

This seemed positively to delight the doctor. His ferrety
blue eyes gleamed with triumph. He laid his hand affec-
tionately on my shoulder.

“But you carit be a communist! You cantr

“Why can’t I?” I asked coldly, moving away. I hate him
to touch me.

“Because there isn’t any such thing as communism. It s just

86

an hallucination. A mental disease. People only imagine
that they’re communists. They aren’t really,”

‘‘What are they, then?”

But he wasn’t listening. He fixed me with his triumphant,
ferrety smile.

“Five years ago I used to think as you do. But my work
at the clinic has convinced me that communism is a mere
hallucination. What people need is discipline, self-control. I
can tell you this as a doctor. I know it from my own experi-
ence,”

This morning we were all together in my room, ready to
start out to bathe. The atmosphere was electric, because Peter
and Otto were still carrying on an obscure quarrel which
they had begun before breakfast, in their own bedroom. I
was turning over the pages of a book, not paying much atten-
tion to them. Suddenly Peter slapped Otto hard on both
cheeks. They closed immediately and staggered grappling
about the room, knocking over the chairs. I looked on, getting
out of their way as well as I could. It was funny, and, at the
same time, unpleasant, because rage made their faces strange
and ugly. Presently Otto got Peter down on the ground and
began twisting his arm: “Have you had enough?” he kept
asldng. He grinned: at that moment he was really hideous,
positively deformed with malice. 1 knew that Otto was glad
to have me there, because my presence was an extra humilia-
tion for Peter. So I laughed, as though the whole thing were
a joke, and went out of tlie room. I walked through the woods
to Baabe, and bathed from the beach beyond. I felt I didn’t
want to see either of them again for several hours.

If Otto wishes to humiliate Peter, Peter in his different
way, also wishes to humiliate Otto. He wants to force Otto
into making a certain kind of submission to his will, and tills
submission Otto refuses instinctively to make. Otto is nat-
urally and healthily selfish, like an animal. If there are two
chairs in a room, he 'will take the more comfortable one with-

87

out hesitation, because it never even occurs to him to consider
Peter’s comfort. Peter’s selfishness is much less honest, more
civilised, more perverse. Appealed to in the right way, he will
make any sacrifice, however unreasonable and unnecessary.
But when Otto takes the better chair as if by right, then
Peter immediately sees a challenge which he dare not refuse
to accept. I suppose that — given their two natures — ^there is
no possible escape from this situation. Peter is bound to go
on fighting to win Otto’s submission. When, at last, he ceases
to do so, it will merely mean that he has lost interest in Otto
altogether.

The really destructive feature of their relationship is its
inherent quality of boredom. It is quite natural for Peter
often to feel bored with Otto — they have scarcely a single in-
terest in common — but Peter, for sentimental reasons, will
never admit that this is so. When Otto, who has no such
motives for pretending, says, “It’s so dull here!” I invariably
see Peter wince and looked pained. Yet Otto is actually far
less often bored than Peter himself; he finds Peter’s company
genuinely amusing, and is quite glad to be with him most of
the day. Often, when Otto has been chattering rubbish for
an hour without stopping, I can see that Peter really longs for
him to be quiet and go away. But to admit this would be, in
Peters eyes, a total defeat, so he only laughs and rubs his
hands, tacitly appealing to me to support him in his pretence
of finding Otto inexhaustibly deHghtful and funny.

On my way back through the woods, after my bathe, I
saw the ferrety little blond doctor advancing to meet me. It
was too late to turn back. I said “Good Morning” as politely
and coldly as possible. The doctor was dressed in running-
shorts and a sweater; he e3£plained that he had been taking a
"‘Waldlauf” “But I think I shall turn back now,” he added.
“Wouldn’t you like to run with me a little?”

“I m afraid I can’t,” I said rashly, “you see, I twisted my
ankle a bit yesterday.”

88

I could have bitten my tongue out as I saw the gleam of
triumph in his eyes. "Ah, you’ve sprained your ankle? Please
let me look at it!” Squirming with dislike, I had to submit to
his prodding fingers. "But it is notliing, I assure you. You
have no cause for alarm.”

As we walked the doctor began to question me about Peter
and Otto, twisting his head to look up at me, as he delivered
each sharp, inquisitive little thrust. He was fairly consumed
with curiosity.

"My work in the clinic has taught me that it is no use try-
ing to help this type of boy. Your friend Peter is very generous
and very well meaning, but he makes a great mistake. This
type of boy always reverts. From a scientific point of view,
I find him exceedingly interesting.”

As though he were about to say something specially mo-
mentous, the doctor suddenly stood still in the middle of the
path, paused a moment to engage my attention, and smilingly
announced:

"He has a criminal head!”

“And you think that people with criminal heads should
be left to become criminals?”

"Certainly not. I believe in discipline. These boys ought
to be put into labour-camps.”

“And what are you going to do with them when you’ve
got them there? You say that they can’t be altered, anyhow,
so I suppose you’d keep them locked up for the rest of their
lives?”

The doctor laughed delightedly, as though this were a joke
against himself which he could, nevertheless, appreciate.
He laid a caressing hand on my arm:

‘'You are an idealist! Do not imagine that I don’t under-
stand your point of view. But it is unscientific, quite un-
scientific. You and your friend do not understand such boys
as Otto. I understand them. Every week, one or two such
boys come to my clinic, and I must operate on them for
adenoids, or mastoid, or poisoned tonsils. So, you see, I know
them through and through!”

89

"I should have thought it would be more accurate to say
you knew their throats and ears.”

Perhaps my German wasn’t quite equal to rendering the
sense of this last remark. At all events, the doctor ignored it
completely. “I know this type of boy very well,” he repeated,
‘It is a bad degenerate type. You cannot make anything out
of these boys. Their tonsils are almost invariably diseased.”

There are perpetual little rows going on between Peter and
Otto, yet I cannot say that I find living with them actually
unpleasant. Just now, I am very much taken up with my new
novel. Thinldng about it, I often go out for long walks, alone.
Indeed, I find myself making more and more frequent ex-
cuses to leave them to themselves; and this is selfish, because,
when I am with them, I can often choke off the beginnings of
a quarrel by changing the subject or making a joke. Peter,
I know, resents my desertions. “You’re quite an ascetic,” he
said maliciously the other day, “always withdrawing for
your contemplations.” Once, when I was sitting in a caf4
near the pier, listening to the band, Peter and Otto came
past. “So this is where you’ve been hiding!” Peter exclaimed.
I saw that, for the moment, he really disliked me.

One evening, we were all walking up the main street,
which was crowded with summer visitors. Otto said to Peter,
with his most spiteful grin: “Why must you always look in
the same direction as 1 do?” This was surprisingly acute, for,
whenever Otto turned his head to stare at a girl, Peter’s eyes
mechanically followed his glance with instinctive jealousy.
We passed tiae photographer’s window, in which, every day,
the latest groups snapped by the beach camera-men are dis-
played, Otto paused to examine one of the new pictures with
great attention, as though its subject were particularly attrac-
tive. I saw Peter’s lips contract. He was struggling with him-
self, but he couldn’t resist his own jealous curiosity — ^he
stopped too. The photograph was of a fat old man with a

90

long beard, waving a Berlin flag. Otto, seeing that his trap
had been successful, laughed maliciously.

Invariably, after supper, Otto goes dancing at the Kurhaus
or the cafe by the lake. He no longer bothers to ask Peter s
permission to do this; he has established the right to have his
evenings to himself. Peter and I generally go out too, into
the village. We lean over the rail of the pier for a long time
without speaking, staring down at the cheap jewellery of
the Kurhaus lights reflected in the black water, each busy
with his own thoughts. Sometimes we go into the Bavarian
cafe and Peter gets steadily drunk — ^his stem, Puritan mouth
contracting slightly with distaste as he raises the glass to
his lips. I say nothing. There is too much to say. Peter, I
know, wants me to make some provocative remark about
Otto which will give him the exquisite relief of losing his
temper. I don t, and we drink — ^keeping up a desultory con-
versation about books and concerts and plays. Later, when
we are returning home, Peter s footsteps will gradually
quicken until, as we enter the house, he leaves me and mns
upstairs to his bedroom. Often we don t get back till half-
past twelve or a quarter to one, but it is very seldom that we
find Otto already there.

Down by the railway station, there is a holiday home for
children from the Hamburg slums. Otto has got to know one
of the teachers from this home, and they go out dancing to-

f ether nearly every evening. Sometimes the girl, with her
ttle troop of children, comes marching past the house. The
children glance up at the windows and, if Otto happens to be
looking out, indulge in precocious jokes. They nudge and
pluck at their young teacher s arm to persuade her to look up,
too.

On these occasions, the girl smiles coyly and shoots one
glance at Otto from under her eyelashes, while Peter, watch-
ing behind the curtains, mutters through clenched teeth:

91

“Bitch . . . bitch . . . bitch . . ” This persecution annoys
him more than the actual friendship itsefi. We always seem
to be running across the children when we are out walking
in the woods. The children sing as they march — patriotic
songs about the Homeland — in voices as shrill as birds. From
far off, we hear them approaching, and have to turn hastily
in the opposite direction. It is, as Peter says, like Captain
Hook and the Crocodile.

Peter has made a scene, and Otto has told his friend that
she mustn’t bring her troop past the house any more. But now
they have begun bathing on our beach, not very far from
the fort. The first morning this happened, Otto’s glance kept
turning in their direction. Peter was aware of this, of course,
and remained plunged in gloomy silence.

“\Miat’s the matter with you to-day, Peter?” said Otto*
“Why are you so horrid to me?”

“Horrid to youF’ Peter laughed savagely.

“Oh, very well then,” Otto jumped up. “I see you don’t
want me here.” And, bounding over the rampart of our fort,
he began to run along the beach towards die teacher and
her children, very gracefully, displaying his figure to the
best possible advantage.

Yesterday evening, there was a gala dance at the Kurhaus.
In a mood of unusual generosity, Otto had promised Peter
not to be later than a quarter to one, so Peter sat up with a
book to wait for him. I didn’t feel tired, and wanted to finish
a chapter, so suggested that he should come into my room
and wait there.

I worked. Peter read. The hours went slowly by. Suddenly
I looked at my watch and saw that it was a quarter past two.
Peter had dozed off in his chair. Just as I was wondering
whether I should wake him, I heard Otto coming up the stairs.
His footsteps sounded drunk. Finding no one in ms room, he
banged open my door. Peter sat up with a start.

Otto lolled grinning against the doorpost He made me a

92

half-tipsy salute. “Have you been reading all this time?” he
asked Peter.

“Yes,” said Peter, very self-controlled.

“WTiy?” Otto smiled fatuously.

“Because I couldn't sleep.”

“Why couldn't you sleep?”

“You know quite well,” said Peter between his teeth.

Otto yawned in his most oflEensive manner. “I don't know
and I don’t care. . . . Don’t make such a fuss.”

Peter rose to his feet. “God, you little swine!” he said,
smacking Otto’s face hard with the flat of his hand. Otto
didn’t attempt to defend himself. He gave Peter an extraor-
dinarily vindictive look out of his bright little eyes. “Good!”
He spoke rather thickly. “To-morrow I shall go back to Ber-
lin.” He turned unsteadily on his heel.

“Otto, come here,” said Peter. I saw that, in another mo-
ment, he would burst into tears of rage. He followed Otto
out on to the landing. “Come here,” he said again, in a sharp
tone of command.

“Oh, leave me alone,” said Otto, “I’m sick of you. I want to
sleep now. To-morrow I’m going back to Berlin.”

This morning, however, peace has been restored — at a
price. Otto’s repentance has taken the form of a sentimental
outburst over his family: “Here I’ve been enjoying myself
and never thinking of them. . . . Poor mother has to work
like a dog, and her lungs are so bad. , . . Let’s send her
some money, shall we, Peter? Let’s send her fifty marks. . . .”
Otto’s generosity reminded him of his own needs. In addi-
tion to the money for Frau Nowak, Peter has been talked
into ordering Otto a new suit, which will cost a hundred and
eighty, as weE as a pair of shoes, a dressing-gown, and a hat.

In return for this outlay, Otto has volunteered to break
off his relations with the teacher. (We now discover that, in
any case, she is leaving the island to-morrow.) After supper,
she appeared, walking up and down outside the house.

“Just let her wait till she’s tired,” said Otto. “I’m not going
down to her.”

93

Presently the girl, made bold by impatience, began to
whistle. This sent Otto into a frenzy of glee. Throwing open
the window, he danced up and down, waving his arms and
making hideous faces at the teacher who, for her part, seemed
struck dumb with amazement at this extraordinary exhibi-
tion.

"Get away from here!” Otto yelled. "Get out!”

The girl turned, and walked slowly away, a rather pathetic
figure, into the gathering darkness.

"I think you might have said good-bye to her,” said Peter,
who could afford to be magnanimous, now that he saw his
enemy routed.

But Otto wouldn't hear of it.

"What's the use of all those rotten girls, anyhow? Every
night they came pestering me to dance with them. , . . And
you know how I am, Peter — I’m so easily persuaded. . . .
Of course, it was horrid of me to leave you alone, but what
could I do? It was all their fault, really. . .

Our life has now entered upon a new phase. Otto's resolu-
tions were short-lived. Peter and I are alone together most
of the day. The teacher has left, and with her, Otto's last
inducement to bathe with us from the fort. He now goes off,
every morning, to the bathing-beach by the pier, to flirt and
play ball with his dancing-partners of die evening. The little
doctor has also disappeared, and Peter and I are free to
bathe and loll in the sun as unathletically as we wish.

After supper, the ritual of Otto's preparations for the dance
begins. Sitting in my bedroom, I hear Peters footsteps cross
the landing, light and springy with relief — ^for now comes
the only time of day when Peter feels himself altogether ex-
cused from taking any interest in Otto's activities. When he
taps on my door, I shut my book at once. I have been out
already to the village to buy half-a-pound of peppermint
cr^ms. Peter says good-bye to Otto, with a vain lingering

94

hope that, perhaps to-night, he will, after all, be punctual:
"*Till half-past twelve, then. . . r

‘‘Till one,"" Otto bargains.

“All right,"" Peter concedes. “Till one. But don"t be late."*

“No, Peter, I wont be late.”

As we open the garden gate and cross the road into the
wood, Otto waves to us from the balcony. I have to be careful
to hide the peppermint creams under my coat, in case he
should see them. Laughing guiltily, munching the pepper-
mints, we take the woodland path to Baabe. We always
spend our evenings in Baabe, nowadays. We like it better
than our own village. Its single sandy street of low-roofed
houses among the pine-trees has a romantic, colonial air;
it is like a ramshackle, lost settlement somewhere in the
backwoods, where people come to look for a non-existent
gold mine and remain, stranded, for the rest of their lives.

In the little restaurant, we eat strawberries and cream, and
talk to the young waiter. The waiter hates Germany and
longs to go to iWerica. **Hier ist nichts los.** During the
season, he is allowed no free time at all, and in the winter
he earns nothing. Most of the Baabe boys are Nazis. Two
of them come into the restaurant sometimes and engage us
in good-humoured political arguments. They tell us about
their field-exercises and military games.

“You’re preparing for war,” says Peter indignantly. On
these occasions — ^alSiough he has really not the slightest in-
terest in politics — ^he gete quite heated.

“Excuse me,” one of the boys contradicts, “that’s quite
wrong. The Fiihrer does not want war. Our programme
stands for peace, with honour. AH the same ...” he adds
wistfully, hds face lighting up, “war can be fine, you know!
Think of the ancient Greeks!”

“The ancient Greeks,"’ I object, “didn’t use poison gas,”

The boys are rather scomfal at this quibble. One of them
answers loftily. “That’s a purely technical question.”

At half-past ten we go down, with most of the other in-

95

habitants, to the railway station, to watch the arrival of the
last train. It is generally empty. It goes clanging away
through the dark woods, sounding its harsh bell. At last it
is late enough to start home; this time, we take the road.
Across the meadows, you can see the illuminated entrance of
the cafe by the lake, where Otto goes to dance.

“The lights of Hell are shining brightly this evening,” Peter
is fond of remarking.

Peter's jealousy has turned into insomnia. He has begun
taking sleeping tablets, but admits that they seldom have
any effect. They merely made him feel drowsy next morning,
after breakfast. He often goes to sleep for an hour or two in
our fort, on the shore.

This morning the weather was cool and dull, the sea
oyster-grey. Peter and I hired a boat, rowed out beyond the
pier, then let ourseUns drift, gently, away from the land.
Peter lit a cigarette. He said abruptly:

“I wonder how much longer this will go on. . .

“As long as you let it, I suppose."

“Yes. . . . We seem to have got into a pretty static con-
dition, don’t we? I suppose there’s no particular reason why
Otto and I should ever stop behaving to each other as we
do at present. ...” He paused, added: “Unless, of course,
I stop giving him money.”

“\Vhat do you think would happen, then?”

Peter paddled idly in the water with his fingers. “He’d
leave me.”

The boat drifted on for several minutes. I asked: "‘You don’t
think he cares for you, at all?”

“At the beginning he did, perhaps. . , . Not now. There’s
nothing between us now but my cash.”

“Do you still care for him?”

“No. ... I don’t know. Perhaps. ... I still hate him,
sometimes — ^if that’s a sign of caring.”

“It might be”

96

There was a long pause. Peter dried his fingers on his
handkerchief. His mouth twitched nervously.

"Well,” he said at last, "what do you advise me to do?^

‘What do you want to do?”

Peter s mouth gave another twitch.

"I suppose, really, I want to leave him.”

“Then you’d better leave him.”

“At once?”

“The sooner the better. Give him a nice present and send
him back to Berlin this afternoon.”

Peter shook his head, smiled sadly:

“I can t.”

There was another long pause. Then Peter said: “Tm sorry
Christopher. . . , You re absolutely right, I know. If I were
in your place, rd say the same thing. . . . But I can’t. Things
have got to go on as they are — ^until something happens. They
can’t last much longer, anyhow. . . . Oh, I know I’m very
weak. . . .”

“You needn’t apologise to me,” I smiled, to conceal a
slight feeling of irritation: “I’m not one of your analysts!”

I picked up the oars and began to row back towards the
shore. As we reached the pier, Peter said:

“It seems funny to think of now — when I first met Otto, I
thought we should live together for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh, my God!” The vision of a life with Otto opened be-
fore me, like a comic inferno. I laughed out loud. Peter
laughed, too, wedging his locked hands between his knees.
His face turned from pink to red, from red to purple. His
veins bulged. We were still laughing when we got out of the
boat

In the garden the landlord was waiting for us. “What a
pity!” he exclaimed. “The gentlemen are too late!” He pointed
over the meadows, in the direction of the lake. We could
see the smoke rising above the line of poplars, as the little
train drew out of tie station; “Your friend was obliged to

97

leave for Berlin, suddenly, on urgent business. I hoped tibe
gentlemen might have been in time to see him oflE. What a
pityl

This time, both Peter and I ran upstairs. Peter s bedroom
was in a terrible mess — all the drawers and cupboards were
open. Propped up on the middle of the table was a note, in
Ottos cramped, scrawling hand:

Dear Peter. Please forgive me I couldn’t stand it any

longer here so I am going home.

Love from Otto.

Don’t be angry.

(Otto had written it, I noticed it, on a fly-leaf tom out of one
of Peters psychology books: Beyond the Pleasure-Principle.)

**Well . . . !” Peters mouth began to twitch. I glanced at
him nervously, expecting a violent outburst, but he seemed
fairly calm. After a moment, he walked over to the cupboards
and began looking through the drawers. “He hasn’t taken
much,” he announced, at the end of his search. “Only a couple
of my ties, three shirts — Plucky my shoes don’t fit him! —
and, let’s see . . . about two hundred marks. . , Peter
started to laugh, rather hysterically: “Very moderate, on the
wholel”

“Do you think he decided to leave quite suddenly?” I
asked, for the sake of saying something.

“Probably he did. That would be just like him. . . . Now
I come to think of it, I told him we were going out in that
boat, this morning — ^and he asked me if we should be away
for long. ...”

X see. ...

I sat down on Peter’s bed — ^thinking, oddly enough, that
Otto has at last done something which I rather respect.

Peters hysterical high spirits kept him going for the rest
of the morning; at lundi he turned gloomy, and wouldn’t say
a word.

98

*Now I must go and pack,” he told me when we had
finished.

**¥00 re off, too?”

“Of course.”

“To Berlin?”

Peter smiled. “No, Christopher. Don't be alarmed! Only to
England. . . ”

“Oh ”

“There’s a train whichTl get me to Hamburg, late to-night
I shall probably go straight on, ... I feel Tve got to keep
travelling until Tm clear of this bloody country. . .

There was nothing to say. I helped him pack, in silence.
As Peter put his shaving-mirror into the bag, he asked: “Do
you remember how Otto broke this, standing on his head?”

“Yes, I remember.”

When we had finished, Peter went out on to the balcony
of his room: ‘There 11 be plenty of whistling outside here,
to-night,” he said.

I smiled: “I shall have to go down and console them.”

Peter laughed: “Yes. You will!”

I went with him to the station. Luckily, the engine-driver
was in a hurry. The train only waited a couple of minutes.

“What shaU you do when you get to London?” I asked.

Peter s mouth curved down at the comers; he gave me a
kind of inverted grin: “Look round for another analyst, I
suppose.”

“Well, mind you beat down his prices a bit!”

“I will.”

As the train moved out, he waved his hand: “Well, good-
bye, Christopher. Thank you for all your moral support!”

Peter never suggested that I should write to him, or visit
him at home. I suppose he wants to forget this place, and
everybody concerned with it. I can hardly blame Mm.

It was only this evening, turning over the pages of a book
I have been reading, that I found another note from Otto^
slipped between the leaves.

99

Please dear Christoph don t you be angry with me
too because you aren’t an idiot like Peter. When you are
back in Berlin I shall come and see you because I know
where you live; I saw the address on one of your letters
and we can have a nice talk.

Your loving friend,

Otto.

I thought, somehow, that he wouldn t be got rid of quite
so easily.

Actually, I am leaving for Berlin in a day oi two, now. I
thought I should stay on till the end of August, and perhaps
finish my novel, but, suddenly, the place seems so lonely. I
miss Peter and Otto, and their daily quarrels, far more than
I should have expected. And now even Otto s dancing-
partners have stopped lingering sadly in the twilight, under
my window.

THE NOWAKS

The entrance to the Wassertorstrasse was a big stone arch-
way, a bit of old Berlin, daubed with hammers and sickles
and Nazi crosses and plastered with tattered bills which
advertised auctions or crimes. It was a deep shabby cobbled
street, littered with sprawling children in tears. Youths in
woollen sweaters circled waveringly across it on racing bikes
and whooped at girls passing with milk-jugs. The pavement

100

was chalk-marked for the hopping game called Heaven and
Earth. At the end of it, like a tall, dangerously sharp, red
instrument, stood a church.

Frau Nowak herself opened the door to me. She looked
far iller than when I had seen her last, with big blue rings
under her eyes. She was wearing the same hat and mangy old
black coat. At first, she didn’t recognise me.

"Good afternoon, Frau Nowak.”

Her face changed slowly from poking suspicion to a bril-
liant, timid, almost girlish smile of welcome:

"Why, if it isn’t Herr Christoph! Come in, Herr Christoph!
Come in and sit down.”

"I’m afraid you were just going out, weren’t you?”

"No, no, Herr Christoph — ^I’ve just come in; just this min-
ute.” She was wiping her hands hastily on her coat before
shaking mine: "This is one of my charring days. I don’t get
finished till half-past two, and it makes the dinner so late.”

She stood aside for me to enter. I pushed open the door
and, in doing so, jarred the handle of the frying-pan on the
stove which stood just behind it. In the tiny kitchen there was
barely room for the two of us together. A stifling smell of
potatoes fried in cheap margarine filled the flat.

"Come and sit down, Herr Christoph,” she repeated, hast-
ily doing the honours. "I’m afraid it’s terribly untidy. You
must excuse that. I have to go out so early and my Crete’s
such a lazy great lump, though she’s turned twelve. There’s
no getting her to do anj^thing, if you don’t stand over her all
the time.”

The living-room had a sloping ceiling stained with old
patches of damp. It contained a big table, six chairs, a side-
board and two large double-beds. The place was so full of
furniture that you had to squeeze your way into it sideways.

"Crete!” cried Frau Nowak. "Where are you? Come here
this minute!”

"She’s gone out,” came Otto’s voice from the inner room.

“Otto! Come and see who’s here!”

“Can’t be bothered. I’m busy mending the gramophone ”

101

“Busy, indeed! You! You good-for-nothing! That's a nice
way to speak to your mother! Come out of that room, do you
hear me?”

She had flown into a rage instantly, automatically, with
astonishing violence. Her face became all nose: thin, bitter
and inflamed. Her whole body trembled.

“It doesn't really matter, Frau Nowak,” I said. “Let him
come out when he wants to. He’ll get all the bigger surprise.”

“A nice son I've got! Speaking to me like that.”

She had pulled off her hat and was unpacking greasy par-
cels from a string bag: “Dear me,” she fussed. “I wonder
where that child's got to? Always down in the street, she is.
If I’ve told her once, I've told her a hundred times. Children
have no consideration.”

“How has your lung been keeping, Frau Nowak?”

She sighed: “Sometimes it seems to me it's worse than ever.
I get such a burning, just here. And when I finish work it's
as if I was too tired to eat. I come over so bilious. . . . I don’t
think the doctor s satisfied either. He talks about sending me
to a sanatorium later in the winter. I was there before, you
know. But there's always so many waiting to go. . . . Then,
the flat's so damp at this time of year. You see those marks
on the ceiling? There's days we have to put a foot-bath under
them to catch the drips. Of course, they’ve no right to let
these attics as dwellings at all, really. The Inspector's con-
demned them time and time again. But what are you to do?
One must live somewhere. We applied for a transfer over a
year ago and they keep promising they'll see about it. But
there's a lot of others are worse off still, I dare say. . . . My
husband was reading out of the newspaper the other day
about the English and their Pound. It keeps on falling, they
say. I don't understand such things, myself. I hope you
haven't lost any money, Herr Christoph?”

“As a matter of fact, Frau Nowak, that's partly why I came
down to see you to-day. I've decided to go into a cheaper
room and I was wondering if there was anywhere round here
you could recommend me?”

102

"Oh dear, Herr Christoph, I am sorryr

She was quite genuinely shocked: "But you can^t live in
this part of the town— a gentleman like you! Oh, no. Tm
afraid it wouldn’t suit you at all.”

"I’m not so particular as you think, perhaps. I just want a
quiet, clean room for about twenty marks a month. It doesn’t
matter how small it is. I’m out most of the day.”

She shook her head doubtfully: “Well, Herr Christoph, I
shall have to see if I can’t think of something. . .

“Isn’t dinner ready yet, mother?” asked Otto, appearing in
shirt-sleeves at the doorway of the inner room: “Im nearly
starving!”

“How do you expect it to be ready when I have to spend
the whole morning slaving for you, you great lump of lazi-
ness!” cried Frau Nowak, shrilly, at the top of her voice.
Then, transposing without the least pause into her ingratiat-
ing social tone, she added: “Don’t you see who’s here?”

“Why . . . it’s Christoph!” Otto, as usual, had begun act-
ing at once. His face was slowly illuminated by a sunrise of
extreme joy. His cheeks dimpled with smiles. He sprang for-
ward, throwing one arm around my neck, wringing my hand:
“Christoph, you old soul, where have you been hiding all this
time?” His voice became languishing, reproachful: “We’ve
missed you so much! Why have you never come to see us?”

“Herr Christoph is a very busy gentleman,” put in Frau
Nowak reprovingly: “He’s got no time to waste running after
a do-nothing like you.”

Otto grinned, v^inked at me: then he turned reproachfully
upon Frau Nowak:

“Mother, what are you thinking of? Are you going to let
Christoph sit there without so much as a cug of coffee? He
must be thirsty, after climbing all these stairsr

‘*What you mean is, Otto, that you re thirsty, don’t you?
No, thank you, Frau Nowak, I won’t have anything— really.
And I won’t keep you from your cooking any longer. . . .
Look here, Otto, will you come out with me now and help
me find a room? I’ve just been telling your mother that I m

103

coming to live in this neighbourhood. . . . You shall have
your cup of coffee with me outside ”

“What, Christoph — you’re going to live here, in Hallesches
Tor!” Otto began dancing with excitement; “Oh, mother,
won’t that be grand! Oh, I am so pleased!”

“You may just as well go out and have a look round with
Herr Christoph, now,” said Frau Nowak. “Dinner won’t be
ready for at least an hour, yet. You’re only in my way here.
Not you, Herr Christoph, of course. You’ll come back and
have something to eat with us, won’t you?”

“Well, Frau Nowak, it’s very kind of you indeed, but I’m
afraid I can’t to-day. I shall have to be getting back home.”

“Just give me a crust of bread before I go, mother,” begged
Otto piteously. “I’m so empty that my head’s spinning round
like a top.”

“All right,” said Frau Nowak, cutting a slice of bread and
half throwing it at him in her vexation, ‘l^ut don’t blame
me if there’s nothing in the house this evening when you
want to make one of your sandwiches. . . . Good-bye, Herr
Christoph. It was very kind of you to come and see us. If you
really decide to live near here, I hope you’ll look in often
. . . though I doubt if you’ll find anything to your liking.
It wont be what you’ve been accustomed to. . . .”

As Otto was about to follow me out of the flat she called
him back. I heard them arguing; then the door shut. I de-
scended slowly the five flights of stairs to the courtyard. The
bottom of the court was clammy and dark, although the sun
was shining on a cloud in the sky overhead. Broken buckets,
wheels off prams and bits of bicycle tyre lay scattered about
like things which have fallen down a well.

It was a minute or two before Otto came clattering down
the stairs to join me:

“Mother didn’t like to ask you,” he told me, breathless. “She
was afraid you’d be annoyed. . . . But I said that I was sure
you’d far rather be with us, w'here you can do just what you
like and you know everything’s clean, than in a strange house
full of bugs. • . . Do say yes, Christoph, please! It’ll be such

104

£iin! You and I can sleep in the back room. You can have
Lothars bed — ^he wont mind. He can share the double-bed
with Crete. . . . And in the mornings you can stay in bed
as long as ever you like. If you want. 111 bring your breakfast.
. . . You will come, won’t you?”

And so it was settled.

My first evening as a lodger at the Nowaks was something
of a ceremony. I arrived with my two suit-cases soon after
five o’clock, to find Frau Nowak already cooking the evening
meal. Otto whispered to me that we were to have lung hash,
as a special treat.

“I’m afraid you won’t think very much of our food,” said
Frau Nowak, “after what you’ve been used to. But we’ll do
our best.” She was all smiles, bubbling over with excitement.
I smiled and smiled, feeling awkward and in the way. At
length, I clambered over the living-room furniture and sat
down on my bed. There was no space to unpack in, and
nowhere, apparently, to put my clothes. At the living-room
table, Crete was playing with her cigarette-cards and trans-
fers. She was a lumpish child of twelve years old, pretty in
a sugary way, but round-shouldered and too fat. My presence
made her very self-conscious. She wriggled, smirked and
kept calling out, in an affected, sing-song, “growm-up” voice:

“Mummy! Come and look at the pretty flowers!”

“I’ve got no time for your pretty flowers,” exclaimed Frau
Nowak at length, in great exasperation: “Here am I, with a
daughter the size of an elephant, having to slave all by my-
self, cooking tibe supper!”

“Quite right, moAer!” cried Otto, gleefully joining in. He
turned upon Crete, righteously indignant: “Why don’t you
help her, I should like to know? You’re fat enough. You sit
around all day doing nothing. Get off that chair this instant,
do you hear! And put those filthy cards away, or I’ll bum
them!”

He grabbed at the cards with one hand and gave Crete a

105

slap across the face with the other. Crete, who obviously
wasn’t hurt, at once set up a loud, theatrical wail; “Oh, Otto,
you’ve hurt me!” She covered her face with her hands and
peeped at me between the fingers.

**Will you leave that child alone!” cried Frau Nowak shrilly
from the kitchen. “I should like to know who you are, to
talk about laziness! And you, Crete, just you stop that howl-
ing — or m tell Otto to lit you properly, so that you’ll have
something to cry for. You two between you, you drive me
distracted.”

“But, mother!” Otto ran into the kitchen, took her round
the waist and began kissing her: “Poor little Mummy, little
Mutti, little Muttchen,” he crooned, in tones of the most
mawkish solicitude. ‘TTou have to work so hard and Otto’s
so horrid to you. But he doesn’t mean to be, you know — ^he’s
just stupid. . . . Shall I fetch the coal up for you to-morrow,
Mummy? Would you like that?”

“Let go of me, you great humbug!” cried Frau Nowak,
laugliing and struggling. “I don’t want any of your soft soap!
Much you care for your poor old mother! Leave me to get on
with my work in peace.”

“Otto’s not a bad boy,” she continued to me, when he had
let go of her at last, “but he’s such a scatterbrain. Quite the
opposite of my Lothar — ^there’s a model son for you! He’s
not too proud to do any job, whatever it is, and when he’s
scraped a few groschen together, instead of spending them
on himself he comes straight to me and says: ‘Here you are,
mother. Just buy yourself a pair of warm house-shoes for the
winter.’” Frau Nowak held out her hand to me with the
gesture of giving money. Like Otto, she had the trick of
acting every scene she described.

“Oh, Lotibar this, Lothar that,” Otto interrupted crossly;
“It’s always Lothar. But tell me this, mother, which of us
was it that gave you a twenty-mark note the other day?
Lothar couldn’t earn twenty marks in a month of Sundays.
Well, if that’s how you talk, you needn’t expect to get any
more; not if you come to me on your knees.”

106

“You wicked boy/* she was up in arms again in an instant,
‘liave you no more shame than to speak of such things in
front of Herr Christoph! Why, if he Imew where that twenty
marks came from — and plenty more besides — ^he*d disdain
to stay in the same house with you another minute; and quite
right, too! And the cheek of you — sapng you gave me that
money! You know very well that if your father hadn't seen
the envelope. . . /*

“That's right!" shouted Otto, screwing up his face at her
like a monkey and beginning to dance with excitement:
“That’s just what I wanted! Admit to Christoph that you
stole it! You’re a thief! You're a thief!"

“Otto, how dare you!” Quick as fury, Frau Nowak's hand
grabbed up the lid of a saucepan. I jumped back a pace to
be out of range, tripped over a chair and sat down hard.
Crete uttered an aflEected little shriek of joy and alarm. The
door opened. It was Herr Nowak, come back from his work.

He was a powerful, dumpy little man, with pointed mous-
tache, cropped hair and bushy eyebrows. He took in the
scene with a long grunt which was half a belch. He did not
appear to understand what had been happening; or perhaps
he merely did not care, Frau Nowak said nothing to en-
lighten him. She hung the saucepan-lid quietly on a hook.
Crete jumped up from her chair and ran to Mm with out-
stretched arms: ^‘Pappi! Pappi!"

Herr Nowak smiled down at her, showing two or three
nicotine-stained stumps of teeth. Bending, he picked her up,
carefully and expertly, with a certain admiring curiosity, like
a large valuable vase. By profession he was a furniture-
remover. Then he held out his hand — ^taking his time about it,
gracious, not fussily eager to please:

“Servus, Herr!”

“Aren’t you glad that Herr ChristopMs come to live with
us, Pappi?” chanted Crete, perdied on her father s shoulder,
in her sugary sing-song tones. At this Herr Nowak, as if
suddenly acquiring new energy, began shaking my hand
again, much more warmly, and tibumping me on me back:

101

“Glad? Yes, of course Im glad!’’ He nodded his head in
vigorous approval. “Enghsch Man? Anglais, eh? Ha, ha.
That’s right! Oh, yes, I talk French, you see. Forgotten most
of it now. Learnt in the war. I was Feldwebel — on the West
Front. Talked to lots of prisoners. Good lads. All the same as
us. . .

“You’re drunk again, father!” exclaimed Frau Nowak in
disgust. “Whatever will Herr Christoph think of you!”

“Christoph doesn’t mind; do you, Christoph?” Herr Nowak
patted my shoulder.

“Christoph, indeed! He’s Herr Christoph to you! Can’t you
tell a gentleman when you see one?”

“I’d much rather you called me Christoph,” I said.

“That’s right! Christoph’s right! We’re all the same flesh
and blood. . . . Argent, money — all the same! Ha, ha!”

Otto took my other arm; “Christoph’s quite one of the
family, already!”

Presently we sat down to an immense meal of lung hash,
black bread, malt coffee and boiled potatoes. In the first
recklessness of having so much money to spend (I had given
her ten marks in advance for the week’s board) Frau Nowak
had prepared enough potatoes for a dozen people. She kept
shovelling them on to my plate from a big saucepan, until I
tliought I should suffocate:

“Have some more, Herr Christoph. You’re eating noth-
ing.”

“I’ve never eaten so much in my whole life, Frau Nowak.”

“Christoph doesn’t like our food,” said Herr Nowak. “Never
mind, Christoph, you’ll get used to it. Otto was just the same
when he came back from the seaside. He’d got used to all
sorts of fine ways, with his Englishman. . . .”

“Hold your tongue, father!” said Frau Nowak wamingly.
“Can’t you leave the boy alone? He’s old enough to be able
to decide for himself what’s right and wrong — ^more shame to
him!”

We were still eating when Lothar came in. He threw his
cap on the bed, shook hands with me politely but silently,

108

with a Kttle bow, and took his place at the table. My presence
did not appear to surprise or interest him in the least: his
glance barely met mine. He was, I knew, only twenty; but
he might well have been years older. He was a man already.
Otto seemed almost childish beside him. He had a lean, bony,
peasant's face, soured by racial memory of barren fields.

“Lothar s going to night-school," Frau Nowak told me
with pride. “He had a job in a garage, you know; and now
he wants to study engineering. They won't take you in any-
where nowadays, unless you've got a diploma of some sort.
He must show you his drawings, Herr Christoph, when
you've got time to look at them. The teacher said they were
very good indeed.”

“I should like to see them."

Lothar didn't respond. I sympathised with him and felt
rather foolish. But Frau Nowak was determined to show him
oflF:

“Which nights are your classes, Lothar?"

“Mondays and Thursdays.” He went on eating, deliber-
ately, obstinately, without looking at his mother. Then per-
haps to show that he bore me no ill-will, he added: “From
eight to ten-thirty.” As soon as he had finished, he got up
without a word, shook hands with me, making the same small
bow, took his cap and went out.

Frau Nowak looked after him and sighed: “He's going
round to his Nazis, I suppose. I often wish he'd never taken
up with them at all. They put all kinds of silly ideas into
his head. It makes him so restl^s. Since he joined them he's
been a diflFerent boy altogether. . . , Not that I understand
these politics myself. What I always say is — ^why can’t we
have the Kaiser back? Those were tihie good times, say what
you like.”

“Ach, to hell with your old Kaiser,” said Otto. ‘What we
want is a communist revolution ”

“A communist revolution!” Frau Nowak snorted. “The
idea! The communists are all good-for-nothing lazybones like
you, who've never done an honest day s work in their lives.”

109

^Christoph’s a commuBist,” said Otto. “Aren’t you, Chris-
toph?”

“Not a proper one. I’m afraid.”

Frau Nowak smiled: “What nonsense will you be telling us
next! How could Herr Christoph be a communist? He’s a
gentleman.”

“What I say is Herr Nowak put down his knife and

fork and wiped his moustache carefully on the back of his
hand: “we’re all equal as God made us. You’re as good as
me; I’m as good as you. A Frenchman’s as good as an Eng-
lishman; an Englishman’s as good as a German. You under-
stand what I mean?”

I nodded.

“Take the war, now .” Herr Nowak pushed back his

chair from the table: “One day I was in a wood. All alone,
you understand. Just walking through the wood by myself,
as I might be walking down Qie street. . , . And suddenly —
there before me, stood a Frenchman. Just as if he’d sprung
out of the earth. He was no further away from me than you
are now.” Herr Nowak sprang to his feet as he spoke.
Snatching up the bread-knife from the table he held it before
him, in a posture of defence, like a bayonet. He glared at
me from beneath his bushy eyebrows, re-living the scene:
“There we stand. We look at each other. That Frenchman
was as pale as death. Suddenly he cries: ‘Don’t shoot me!’
Just like that.” Herr Nowak clasped his hands in a piteous
gesture of entreaty. The bread-loiife was in the way now:
he put it down on the table. “ ‘Don’t shoot me! I have five
children.’ (He spoke French, of course: but I could under-
stand him. I could speak French perfectly in those days; but
I’ve forgotten some of it now.) Well, I look at him and he
looks at me. Then I say: ‘Ami.’ (That means Friend.) And
then we shake hands.” Herr Nowak took my hand in both of
his and pressed it with great emotion. “And then we begin to
walk away from each other — ^backwards; I didn’t want him
to shoot me in the back.” Still glaring in front of him Herr
Nowak began cautiously retreating backwards, step by step,

110

until he collided violently with the sideboard. A framed
photograph fell off it. The glass smashed.

“Pappi! Pappi!” cried Crete in delight. “Just look what
you Ve done!”

“Perhaps that’ll teach you to stop your fooling, you old
clown!” exclaimed Frau Nowak angrily. Crete began loudly
and affectedly laughing, xmtil Otto slapped her face and she
set up her stagey whine. Meanwhile, Herr Nowak had re-
stored his wife’s good temper by kissing her and pinching
her cheek.

“Cet away from me, you great lout!” she protested laugh-
ing; coyly pleased that I was present; “Let me alone, you
stkik of beer!”

At that time, I had a great many lessons to give. I was out
most of the day. My pupils were scattered about the fashion-
able suburbs of the west — ^rich, well-preserved women of
Frau Nowak s age, but looking ten years younger; they liked
to make a hobby of a little English conversation on dull
afternoons when their husbands were away at the office. Sit-
ting on silk cushions in front of open fireplaces, we discussed
Foint Counter Point and Ladtj Chatterieys Lover, A man-
servant brought in tea with buttered toast. Sometimes, when
they got tired of literature, I amused them by descriptions
of the Nowak household. I was careful, however, not to say
that I lived there: it would have been bad for my business
to admit that I was really poor. The ladies paid me three
marks an hour; a little reluctantly, having done their best
to beat me down to two marks fifty* Most of them also tried,
deliberately or subconsciously, to cheat me into staying
longer than my time. I always had to keep my eye on the
dock.

Fewer people wanted lessons in the morning; and so it
happened that I usually got up much later than the rest of
the Nowak family. Frau Nowak had her charring, Herr
Nowak went off to his job at the furniture-removers, Lothar,

111

who was out of work, was helping a friend with a paper-
round, Crete went to school. Only Otto kept me company;
except on the mornings when, with endless nagging, he was
driven out to the labour-bureau by his mother, to get his
card stamped.

After fetching our breakfast, a cup of coffee and a slice
of bread and dripping, Otto would strip off his pyjamas and
do exercises, shadow-box or stand on his head. He flexed his
muscles for my admiration. Squatting on my bed, he told me
stories:

“Did I ever tell you, Christoph, how I saw the Hand?’*

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, listen. . . . Once, when I was very small, I was
lying in bed at night. It was very dark and very late. And
suddenly I woke up and saw a great big black hand stretch-
ing over the bed. I was so frightened I couldn’t even scream.
I just drew my legs up under my chin and stared at it. Then,
after a minute or two, it disappeared and I yelled out. Mother
came running in and I said: ‘Mother, I’ve seen the Hand.’
But she only laughed. She wouldn’t believe it.”

Otto’s innocent face, with its two dimples, like a bun, had
become very solemn. He held me with his absurdly small
bright eyes, concentrating all his narrative powers:

“And then, Christoph, several years later, I had a job as
apprentice to an upholsterer. 'W^ell, one day — it was in the
middle of the morning, in broad daylight — I was sitting
working on my stool. And suddenly it seemed to go all dark
in the room and I looked up and there was the Hand, as
near to me as you are now just closing over me. I felt my
arms and legs turn cold and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t
cry out. The master saw how pale I was and he said: ‘Why,
Otto, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you well?* And
as he spoke to me it seemed as if the Hand drew right away
from me again, getting smaller and smaller, until it was
just a little black speck. And when I looked up again the room
was quite light, just as it always was, and where I’d seen the
black speck there was a big fly crawling across the ceiling.

112

But I was so ill the whole day that the master had to send
me home.”

Otto s face had gone quite pale during this recital and, for
a moment, a really frightening expression of fear had passed
over his features. He was tragic now; his little eyes bright
with tears:

‘'One day I shall see the Hand again. And then I shall
die.”

“Nonsense,” I said, laughing. “Well protect you.”

Otto shook his head very sadly:

“Let s hope so, Christoph. But Tm afraid not. The Hand
will get me in the end.”

“How long did you stay with the upholsterer?” I asked.

“Oh, not long. Only a few weeks. The master was so unkind
to me. He always gave me the hardest jobs to do — and I
was such a little chap then. One day I got there five minutes
late. He made a terrible row; called me a verfluchter Hund,
And do you think I put up with that?” Otto leant forward,
thrust his face, contracted into a dry monkey-like leer of
malice, towards me. “Nee, nee! Bei mir nichtr His little eyes
focussed upon me for a moment with an extraordinary in-
tensity of simian hatred; his puckered-up features became
startlingly ugly. Then they relaxed. I was no longer the
upholsterer. He laughed gaily and innocently, throwing back
his hair, showing his teeQi; “I pretended I was going to bit
him. I frightened him, all right!” He imitated the gesture
of a scared middle-aged man avoiding a blow. He laughed.

“And then you had to leave?” I asked.

Otto nodd^. His face slowly changed. He was turning
melancholy again,

“What did your father and mother say to that?”

“Oh, theyVe always been against me. Ever since I was
small. If there were two crusts of bread, mother would al-
ways give the bigger one to Lothar. Whenever I complained
they used to say: ‘Go and work. You're old enough. Get
your own food. Why should we support you?' ” Otto's eyes
moistened with the most sincere self-pity: “Nobody iinder-

113

stands me here. Nobody s good to me. They all hate me
really. They wish I was dead ”

‘‘How can you talk such rubbish, Otto! Your mother cer-
tainly doesn’t hate you.”

“Poor mother!” agreed Otto. He had changed his tone at
once, seeming utterly imaware of what he had just said: “It’s
terrible. I can’t bear to think of her working like that, every
day. You know, Christoph, she’s very, very ill. Often, at
night, she coughs for hours and hours. And sometimes she
spits out blood. I lie awake wondering if she’s going to die.”

I nodded. In spite of myself I began to smile. Not that I
disbelieved what he had said about Frau Nowak. But Otto
himself, squatting there on the bed, was so animally alive,
his naked brown body so sleek with health, that his talk of
death seemed ludicrous, like the description of a funeral by
a painted clown. He must have understood this, for he
grinned back, not in the least shocked at my apparent cal-
lousness. Straightening his legs he bent forward without
effort and grasped his feet with his hands: “Can you do that,
Christoph?”

A sudden notion pleased him: “Christoph, if I show you
something, will you swear not to tell a single soul?”

“All right.”

He got up and rummaged under his bed. One of the floor-
boards was loose in the comer by the window: lifting it, he
fished out a tin box whida had once contained biscuits. The
tin was full of letters and photographs. Otto spread them
out on the bed:

“Mother would bum these if she found them. . . • Look,
Christoph, how do you like her? Her name’s Hilde. I met her
at the place where I go dancing. . . . And this is Marie.
Hasn’t she got beautiful eyes? She’s wild about me — all the
other boys are jealous. But she’s not really my type.” Otto
shook his head seriously: “You know, it’s a funny tiling, but
as soon as I know that a girl’s keen on me, I lose interest in
her. I wanted to break with her altogether; but she came
round here and made such a to-do in front of mother. So I

114

have to see her sometimes to keep her quiet . . . And here s
Trude — ^honestly, Christoph, would you believe she was
twenty-seven? It s a fact! Hasn’t she a marvellous figure? She
lives in the West End, in a flat of her own! She’s been divorced
twice. I can go there whenever I like. Here’s a photo her
brother took of her. He wanted to take some of us two to-
gether, but I wouldn’t let him. I was afraid he’d sell them,
Afterwards — ^you can be arrested for it, you know. . . Otto
smirked, handed me a packet of letters; ‘‘Here, read these;
they’ll make you laugh. This one’s from a Dutchman. He’s
got the biggest car I ever saw in my life. I was with him in
me spring. He writes to me sometimes. Father got wind of
it, and now he watches out to see if there’s any money in the
envelopes — ^the dirty dog! But I know a trick worth two of
that! I’ve told all my friends to address their letters to the
bakery on the comer. The baker’s son is a pal of mine. . . r

“Do you ever hear from Peter?” I asked.

Otto regarded me veiy solemnly for a moment; “Chris-

tophr

“Yesr

“Will you do me a favour?”

“What is it?” I asked cautiously; Otto always chose the least
expected moments to ask for a small loan.

“Please. ...” he was gently reproachful, “please, never
mention Peter s name to me again. . .

“Oh, all right,” I said, very much taken aback: “If you’d
rather not.”

“You see, Christoph. . . . Peter hurt me very much. I
thought he was my friend. And then, suddenly, he left me
— ^all alone. . .

Down in the murky pit of the courtyard where the fog,
in this clammy autumn weather, never lifted, the street
singers and musicians succeeded each other in a performance
whidb was nearly continuous. There were parties of boys
with mandolins, an old man who played the concertina and

115

a father who sang with his little girls. Easily the favourite
tune was: Aus der Jugendzeit. I often heard it a dozen times
in one morning. The father of the girls was paralyzed and
could only make desperate throttled noises like a donkey;
but the daughters sang with the energy of fiends: ‘'Sie kommty
sie kommt nicht me&r they screamed in unison, like de-
mons of the air, rejoicing in the frustration of mankind. Oc-
casionally a groschen, screwed in a comer of newspaper, was
tossed down from a window high above. It hit the pave-
ment and ricocheted like a bullet, but the little girls never
flinched.

Now and then the visiting nurse called to see Frau Nowak,
shook her head over the sleeping arrangements and went
away again. The inspector of housing, a pale young man
with an open collar (which he obviously wore on principle),
came also and took copious notes. The attic, he told Frau
Nowak, was absolutely insanitary and uninhabitable. He
had a slightly reproachful air as he said this, as though we
ourselves were partly to blame. Frau Nowak bitterly re-
sented these visits. They were, she thought, simply attempts
to spy on her. She was haunted by the fear that the nurse or
the inspector would look in at a moment when the fiat was
untidy. So deep were her suspicions that she even told lies —
pretending that the leak in the roof wasn’t serious — ^to get
them out of the house as quickly as possible.

Another regular visitor was the Jewish tailor and outfitter,
who sold clo&es of all kinds on the instalment plan. He was
small and gentle and very persuasive. All day long he made
his rounds of the tenements in the district, collecting fifty
pfennigs here, a mark there, scratching up his precarious
livelihood, like a hen, from this apparently barren soil. He
never pressed hard for money; preferring to urge his debtors
to take more of his goods and embark upon a fresh series of
payments- Two years ago Frau Nowak had bought a suit
and an overcoat for Otto for three hundred marks. The suit
and the overcoat had been worn out long ago, but the money
was not nearly repaid. Shortly after my arrival Frau Nowak

116

invested in clothes for Crete to the value of seventy-five
marks. The tailor made no objection at all.

The whole neighbourhood owed him money. Yet he was
not unpopular: he enjoyed the status of a public character,
whom people curse without real malice. “Perhaps Lotliar s
right,” Frau Nowak would sometimes say: "When Hitler
comes, he’ll show these Jews a thing or two. They won’t be
so cheeky then.” But when I suggested that Hitler, if he
got his own way, would remove the tailor altogether, then
Frau Nowak would immediately change her tone: “Oh, I
shouldn’t like that to happen. After all, he makes very good
clothes. Besides, a Jew wiU always let you have time if you’re
in diflSculties. You wouldn’t catch a Christian giving credit
like he does. . . . You ask the people round here, Herr
Christoph: they’d never turn out tiie Jews.”

Towards evening Otto, who had spent the day in gloomy
lounging — either lolling about the flat or chatting with his
friends downstairs at the courtyard entrance — would begin
to brighten up. When I got back from work I generally found
him changing already from his sweater and knickerbockers
into his best suit, with its shoulders padded out to points,
small tight double-breasted waistcoat and bell-bottomed
trousers. He had quite a large selection of ties and it took
him half an hour at least to choose one of them and to knot
it to his satisfaction. He stood smirking in front of the
cracked triangle of looking-glass in the kitchen, his pink
plum-face dimpled with conceit, getting in Frau Nowak’s
way and disregarding all her protests. As soon as supper was
over he was going out dancing.

I generally went out in the evenings, too. However tired I
was, I couldn’t go to sleep immediately after my evening
meal: Crete and her parents were often in bed by nine o’clock*
So I went to the cinema or sat in a cafe and read the news-
papers and yawned. There was nothing else to do.

At the end of our street there was a cellar Ichd called the

III

Alexander Casino. Otto showed it to me one evening, when
we happened to leave the house together. You went down
four steps from the street level, opened the door, pushed
aside the heavy leather curtain which kept out the draught
and found yourself in a long, low, dingy room. It was lit by
red Chinese lanterns and festooned with dusty paper
streamers. Roimd the walls stood wicker tables and big
shabby settees which looked like the seats of English third-
class railway-carriages. At the far end were trellis-work al-
coves, arboured over with imitation cherry-blossom twined
on wires. The whole place smelt damply of beer.

I had been here before: a year ago, in the days when Fritz
Wendel used to take me on Saturday evening excursions
round "the dives” of the city. It was all just as we had left it;
only less sinister, less picturesque, symbolic no longer of a
tremendous truth about the meaning of existence — because,
this time, I wasn’t in the least drunk. The same proprietor,
an ex-boxer, rested his immense stomach on the bar, the same
hangdog waiter shuflSed forward in his soiled white coat:
two girls, the very same, perhaps, were dancing together to
the wailing of the loud-speaker. A group of youths in sweaters
and leather jackets were playing Sheep’s Head; the spectators
leaning over to see the caras. A boy with tattooed arms sat
by the stove, deep in a crime shocker. His shirt was open at
the neck, with the sleeves rolled up to his armpits; he wore
shorts and socks, as if about to take part in a race. Over in
the far alcove, a man and a boy were sitting together. The
boy had a round childish face and heavy reddened eyelids
which looked swollen as i£ from lack of sleep. He was relating
something to the elderly, shaven-headed, respectable-looking
man, who sat rather unwillingly listening and smoking a
short cigar. The boy told his story carefully and with great
patience. At intervals, to emphasise a point, he laid his hand
on the elderly man’s Imee and looked up into his face, watch-
ing its every movement shrewdly and intently, like a doctor
with a nervous patient.

Later on, I got to know this boy quite well. He was called

118

Pieps. He was a great traveller. He ran away from home at
the age of fourteen because his father, a woodcutter in the
Thuringian Forest, used to beat him. Pieps set out to walk
to Hamburg. At Hamburg he stowed away on a ship bound
for Antwerp and from Antwerp he walked back into Ger-
many and along the Rhine. He had been in Austria, too, and
Czechoslovakia. He was full of songs and stories and jokes:
he had an extraordinarily cheerful and happy nature, sharing
what he had with his friends and never worrying where his
next meal was coming from. He was a clever pickpocket and
worked chiefly in an amusement-hall in the Friedrichstrasse,
not far from the Passage, which was full of detectives and
getting too dangerous nowadays. In this amusement-hall
3iere were punch-balls and peepshows and try-your-grip
machines. Most of the boys from the Alexander Casino spent
their afternoons there, while their girls were out working
the Friedrichstrasse and the Linden for possible pickups.

Pieps lived together with his two friends, Gerhardt and
Kurt, in a cellar on the canal-bank, near the station of the
overhead railway. The cellar belonged to Gerhardt s aunt,
an elderly Friedrichstrasse whore, whose legs and arms were
tattooed with snakes, birds and flowers. Gerhardt was a tall
boy with a vague, silly, unhappy smile. He did not pick
pockets, but stole from the big department-stores. He had
never yet been caught, perhaps because of the lunatic
brazenness of his thefts. Stupidly grinning, he would stuff
things into his pockets right under the noses of the shop-
assistants. He gave everything he stole to his aunt, who cursed
him for his laziness and kept him very short of money. One
day, when we were together, he took from his pocket a
brightly coloured lady s leather belt; “Look, Christoph, isn’t
it pretty?”

“Where did you get it from?”

“From Landauers’,” Gerhardt told me. “Why . . * what
are you smiling at?”

“You see, the Landauera are friends of mine. It seems
funny — ^that’s all.”

119

At once, Gerhardt's face was the picture of dismay: ^ou
won't tell them, Christoph, will you?”

“No,” I promised. “1 won't.”

Kurt came to the Alexander Casino less often than the
others. I could understand him better than I could imder*
stand Pieps or Gerhardt, because he was consciously un-
happy. He had a reckless, fatal streak in his character, a
capacity for pure sudden flashes of rage against the hope-
lessness of his life. The Germans call it Wut. He would sit
silent in his comer, drinking rapidly, drumming with his
fists on the table, imperious and sullen. Then, suddenly, he
would jump to his feet, exclaim: “Ach, Scheissr and go
striding out. In this mood, he picked quarrels deliberately
with the other boys, fighting them three or four at a time,
until he was flung out into the street, half stunned and
covered with blood. On these occasions even Pieps and Ger-
hardt joined against him as against a public danger: they hit
him as hard as anyone else and dragged h'm home between
them afterwards without the least malice for the black eyes
he often managed to give them. His behaviour did not ap-
pear to surprise them in the least. They were all good friends
again next day.

By the time I arrived back Herr and Frau Nowak had
probably been asleep for two or three hours. Otto generally
arrived later still. Yet Herr Nowak, who resented so much
else in his son's behaviour, never seemed to mind getting up
and opening the door to him, whatever the time of night.
For some strange reason, nothing would induce the Nowaks
to let either of us have a latchkey. They couldn't sleep imless
the door was bolted as well as locked.

In these tenements each lavatory served for four fiats.
Ours was on the floor below. If, before retiring, I wished to
relieve nature, there was a second journey to be made
through the living-room in the dark to the kitchen, skirting
the table, avoiding the chairs, trying not to coUide with the

120

head of the Nowalcs’ bed or jolt the bed in which Lothar and
Crete were sleeping. However cautiously I moved, Frau
Nowak would wake up: she seemed to be able to see me in
the dark, and embarrassed me with polite directions: “No,
Herr Christoph — not there, if you please. In the bucket on
the left, by the stove.”

Lying in bed, in the darkness, in my tiny comer of the
enormous human warren of the tenements, I could hear, with
uncanny precision, every sound which came up from the
courtyard below. The shape of the court must have acted as
a gramophone-hom. There was someone going downstairs:
our neighbour, Herr Muller, probably: he had a night-shift
on the railway. I listened to his steps getting fainter, flight by
flight; then they crossed the court, clear and sticky on the
wet stone. Straining my ears, I heard, or fancied I heard, the
grating of the key in the lock of the big street door. A mo-
ment later, the door closed with a deep, hollow boom. And
now, from the next room, Frau Nowak had an outburst of
coughing. In the silence which followed it, LothaFs bed
crewed as he turned over muttering someth ‘ng ind'stinct and
threatening in his sleep. Somewhere on the other side of the
court a baby began to scream, a window was slammed to,
something very heavy, deep in the innermost recesses of the
building, thudded dully against a wall. It was alien and mys-
terious and uncanny, like sleeping out in the jungle alone.

Simday was a long day at the Nowaks. There was nowhere
to go in this wretched weather. We were all of us at home.
Crete and Herr Nowak were watching a trap for sparrows
which Herr Nowak had made and fixSl up in the window.
They sat there, hour by hour, intent upon it. The string
which worked the trap was in Crete’s hand. Occasionally,
they giggled at each other and looked at me. I was sitting
on the opposite side of the table, frowning at a piece of papar
on which I had written; “But, Edward, can’t you seeF" I was
trying to get on with my novel. It was about a family who

121

lived in a large country house on unearned incomes and were
veiy unhappy. They spent their time explaining to each other
why they couldn’t enjoy their lives; and some of the reasons
— ^diough I say it myself — ^were most ingenious. Unfor-
tunately I found myself taking less and less interest in my
unhappy family: the atmosphere of the Nowak household
was not very inspiring. Otto, in the inner room with the door
open, was amusing himself by balancing ornaments on the
turntable of an old gramophone, which was now minus
sound-box and tone-arm, to see how long it would be before
they flew off and smashed. Lothar was filing keys and mend-
ing locks for the neighbours, his pale sullen face bent over
his work in obstinate concentration. Frau Nowak, who was
cooking, began a sermon about the Good and the Worthless
Brother: “Look at Lothar. Even when he’s out of a job he
keeps himself occupied. But all you’re good for is to smash
things. You’re no son of mine.”

Otto lolled sneering on his bed, occasionally spitting out
an obscene word or making a farting noise widi his lips.
Certain tones of his voice were maddening: they made one
want to hurt him — and he knew it. Frau Nowak’s shrill scold-
ing rose to a scream:

“I’ve a good mind to turn you out of the house! What have
you ever done for us? When there’s any work going you’re
too tired to do it; but you’re not too tired to go gallivanting
about half the night — ^you wicked unnatural good-for-
nothing. . ,

Otto sprang to his feet, and began dancing about the room
with cries of animal triumph. Frau Nowak picked up a piece
of soap and flung it at him. He dodged, and it smashed the
window. After this Frau Nowak sat down and began to cry.
Otto ran to her at once and began to soothe her with noisy
kisses. Neither Lothar nor Herr Nowak took much notice
of the row. Herr Nowak seemed even rather to have enjoyed
it: he winked at me slyly. Later, the hole in the window was
stopped with a piece of cardboard. It remained unmended;
adding one more to the many draughts in the attic.

122

During supper, we were all jolly. Herr Nowak got up
from the table to give imitations of the different ways in
which Jews and Catholics pray. He fell down on his knees
and bumped his head severd times vigorously on the ground,
gabbling nonsense which was supposed to represent Hebrew
and Latin prayers: “Kool)wotchka, koolyvotchka, kooly-
votchka. Amen.” Then he told stories of executions, to the
horror and delight of Crete and Frau Nowak: 'William the
First — ^the old William — ^never signed a death-warrant; and
do you know why? Because once, quite soon after he’d come
to me throne, there was a celebrated murder-case and for a
long time the judges couldn’t agree whether the prisoner
was guilty or innocent, but at last they condemned him to
be executed. They put him on the scaffold and the executioner
took his axe — so; and swung it — like this; and brought it
dowm: Kemack! (They’re all tramed men, of course: You or
I couldn’t cut a man’s head off with one stroke, if they gave
us a thousand marks.) And the head fell into the basket —
flop!” Herr Nowak rolled up his eyes, let his tongue hang out
from the comer of his mouth and gave a really most vivid
and disgusting imitation of the decapitated head: ‘‘And
then the head spoke, all by itself, and said: ‘I am innocent!’
( Of course, it was only the nerves; but it spoke, just as plainly
as I’m speaking now.) 1 am innocent!’ it said. . . . And a
few months later, another man confessed on his death-bed
that he’d been the real murderer. So, after that, William
never signed a death-warrant again!”

In the Wassertorstrasse one week was much like another.
Our leaky stuffy little attic smelt of cooking and bad drains.
When the living-room stove was alight, we could hardly
breathe; when it wasn’t we froze. The weather had turned
very cold. Frau Nowak tramped the streets, when she wasn’t
at work, from the clinic to the board of health offices and
back again; for hours she waited on benches in draughty
corridors or puzzled over complicated application-forms. The

123

doctors couldn’t agree about her case. One was in favour
of sending her to a sanatorium at once. Another thought she
was too far gone to be worth sending at all — and told her so.
Another assured her that there was nothing serious the mat-
ter: she merely needed a fortnight in the Alps. Frau Nowak
listened to all three of them with the greatest respect and
never failed to impress upon me, in describing these inter-
views, that each was the kindest and cleverest professor to
be found in the whole of Europe.

She returned home, coughing and shivering, with sodden
shoes, exhausted and semi-hysterical. No sooner was she
inside the flat than she began scolding at Crete or at Otto,
quite automatically, like a clockwork doll unwinding its
spring:

‘‘You mark my words — ^youll end in prison! I wish Td
packed you off to a reformatory when you were fourteen. It
might have done you some good. . . . And to think that, in
my whole family, we Ve never had anybody before who wasn t
respectable and decent!”

“Ycm respectable!” Otto sneered: “When you were a girl
you went around with every pair of trousers you could
find.”

“I forbid you to speak to me like that! Do you hear? I for-
bid you! Oh, I wish Td died before I bore you, you wicked,
unnatural child!”

Otto skipped around her, dodging her blows, wild with
glee at the row he had started. In hS excitement he pulled
hideous grimaces.

“He's mad!” exclaimed Frau Nowak: look at him

now, Herr Christoph. I ask you, isn't he just a raving mad-
man? I must take him to the hospital to be examined.”

This idea appealed to Otto's romantic imagination. Often,
when we were alone together, he would tell me with tears in
his eyes:

I shan t be here much longer, Christoph. My nerves are
breakmg down. Very soon they'll come and take me away.
Theyll put me in a strait-waistcoat and feed me through a

124

rubber tube. And when you come to visit me, I shan't know
who you are."

Frau Nowak and Otto were not the only ones with "nerves "
Slowly but surely the Nowaks were breaking down my
powers of resistance. Every day I found the smell from the
kitchen sink a little nastier: every day Ottos voice when
quarrelling seemed harsher and his mother s a little shriller.
Crete s whine made me set my teeth. When Otto slammed a
door I winced irritably. At nights I couldn't get to sleep un-
less I was half drunk. Also, I was secretly worrying about
an unpleasant and mysterious rash: it might be due to Frau
Nowak's cooking, or worse.

I now spent most of my evenings at the Alexander Casino.
At a table in the comer by the stove I wrote letters, talked
to Pieps and Cerhardt or simply amused myself by watching
the o&er guests. The place was usually very quiet. We all
sat round or lounged at the bar, waiting for something to hap-
pen. No sooner came the sound of Qie outer door than a
dozen pairs of eyes were turned to see what new visitor
would emerge from behind the leather curtain. Cenerally,
it was only a biscuit-seller with his basket, or a Salvation
Army girl with her collecting-box and tracts. If the biscuit-
seller had been doing good business or was drunk he w'ould
throw dice with us for packets of sugar-wafers. As for the
Salvation Army girl, she rattled her way drably round the
room, got nothing and departed, vdthout making us feel in
the least uncomfortable, fiadeed, she had become so much
a part of the evening's routine that Cerhardt and Pieps did
not even make jokes about her when she %vas gone. Then an
old man would shuffle in, whisper something to the barman
and retire with him into the room behind the bar. He was a
cocaine-addict. A moment later he reappeared, raised his
hat to all of us with a vague courteous gesture, and shuffled
out. The old man had a nervous tic and kept shaking his head
all the time, as if saying to Life: No. No. No.

Sometimes the police came, looking for wanted criminals
or scaped reformatory boys. Their visits were usually ex-

125

pected and prepared for. At any rate you could always, as
Pieps explained to me, make a last-minute exit through the
lavatory window into the courtyard at the back of the house:
“But you must be careful, Christoph,” he added: “Take a
good big jump. Or you'll fall down the coal-chute and into
the cellar, I did, once. And Hamburg Werner, who was
coming after me, laughed so much that tibe bulls caught him.”

On Saturday and Sunday evenings the Alexander Casino
was full. Visitors from the West End arrived, like ambas-
sadors from another country. There were a good number
of foreigners — Dutchmen mostly, and Englishmen. The Eng-
lishmen talked in loud, high, excited voices. They discussed
communism and Van Gogh and the best restaurants. Some of
them seemed a little scared: perhaps they expected to be
knifed in this den of thieves. Pieps and Gerhardt sat at their
tables and mimicked their accents, cadging drinks and
cigarettes. A stout man in horn spectacles asked: “Were you
at that delicious party Bill gave for the negro singers?” And
a young man with a monocle murmured; “All the poetry in
the world is in that face.” I knew what he was feeling at
that moment: I could sympathise with, even envy him. But
it was saddening to know that, two weeks hence, he would
boast about his exploits here to a select party of clubmen
or dons — ^warmed discreet smilers around a table furnished
with historic silver and legendary port. It made me feel
older.

At last the doctors made up their minds: Frau Nowak was
to be sent to the sanatorium rfter all: and quite soon — shortly
before Christmas. As soon as she heard this she ordered a
new dress from the tailor. She was as excited and pleased as
if she had been invited to a party: “The matrons are always
very particular, you know, Herr Christoph. They see to it
that we keep ourselves neat and tidy. If we don't we get
punished — ^and quite right, too. . . . Im sure I shall enjoy
being there,” Frau Nowak sighed, “if only I can stop i?ayself

126

worrying about tbe family. What theyTl do when Im gone,
goodness only knows. They re as helpless as a lot of sheep.
. . In the evenings she spent hours stitching warm flannel
underclothes, smiling to herself, like a woman who is ex-
pecting a child.

On the afternoon of my departure Otto was very depressed.

“Now you’re going, Christoph, I don’t know what’ll hap-
pen to me. Perhaps, six months from now, I shan’t be alive
at all.”

“You got on all right before I came, didn’t you?*

“Yes . . . but now mothers going, too. I don’t suppose
father’ll give me anything to eat.”

“What rubbish!”

“Take me with you, Christoph. Let me be your servant
I could be very useful, you know. I could cook for you and
mend your clothes and open the door for your pupils. . .
Otto’s eyes brightened as he admired himself in this new
role. “I’d wear a little white jacket— or perhaps blue would
be better, with silver buttons. . .

“I’m afraid you’re a luxury I can’t afford.”

“Oh, but, Christoph, I shouldn’t want any wages, of
course.” Otto paused, feeling that this offer had been a bit
too generous. ‘TThat is,” he added cautiously, “only just a
mark or two to go dancing, now and then.”

“I’m very sorry.”

We were interrupted by the return of Frau Nowak. She
had come home early to cook me a farewell meal. Her string-
bag was full of things she had bought; she had tired herself
out carrying it. She shut the kitchen-door behind her with
a sigh and began to bustle about at once, her nerves on edge*
ready for a row.

“Why, Otto, you’ve let the stove go out! After I specially
told you to keep an eye on it! Oh, dear, can’t I rely on any-
body in this house to help me with a single thing?”

“Sorry, mother,” said Otto. “I forgot”

127

“Of course you forgot! Do you ever remember anything?
You forgotr Frau Nowak screamed at him, her features
puckered into a sharp little stabbing point of fury: “IVe
worked myself into my grave for you, and that s my thanks.
When Vm gone I hope your father'll turn you out into the
streets. We'll see how you like that! You great, lazy, hulking
lump! Get out of my sight, do you hear! Get out of my
sight!"

“All right. Christoph, you hear what she says?" Otto turned
to me, his face convulsed with rage; at that moment the re-
semblance between them was quite startling; they were like
creatures demoniacally possessed. “I'll make her sorry for
it as long as she lives!^'

He turned and plunged into the inner bedroom, slamming
the rickety door behind him. Frau Nowak turned at once to
the stove and began shovelling out the cinders. She was
trembling all over and coughing violently. I helped her, put-
ting firewood and pieces of coal into her hands; she took
them from me blindly, without a glance or a word. Feeling,
as usual, that I was only in the way, I went into the living-
room and stood stupidly by the window, wishing that I
could simply disappear. 1 had had enough. On the window-
sill lay a stump of pencil. I picked it up and drew a small
circle on the wood, thinking: I have left my mark. Then I
remembered how I had done exactly the same thing, years
ago, before leaving a boarding-house in North Wales. In
the inner room all was quiet. I decided to confront Otto's
sulks. I had still got my suit-cases to pack.

When I opened the door Otto was sitting on his bed. He
was staring as if hypnotized at a gash in his left wrist, from
which the blood was trickling down over his open palm and
spilling in big drops on the floor. In his right hand, be-
tween finger and thumb, he held a safety-razor blade. He
didn't resist when I snatched it from him. The wound itself
was nothing much; I bandaged it with his handkerchief.
Otto seemed to turn faint for a moment and lolled against
my shoulder.

128

*‘How on earth did you manage to do it?"

*‘1 wanted to show her " said Otto. He was very pale. He
had evidently given himself a nasty scare: “You shouldn't
have stopped me, Christoph."

“You little idiot,” I said angrily, for he had frightened me,
too: “One of these days you'll really hurt yourself — ^by mis-
take.”

Otto gave me a long, reproachful look. Slowly his eyes filled
with tears.

“What does it matter, Christoph? I'm no good. . . .
What'll become of me, do you suppose, when I'm older?”

“Yoii'U get work.”

“Work. , . .” The very thought made Otto burst into tears.
Sobbing violently, he smeared the back of his hand across
his nose.

I pulled out the handkerchief from my pocket. “Here.
Take this ”

"Thanks, Christoph. ...” He wiped his eyes mournfully
and blew his nose. Then something about the handkerchief
itself caught his attention. He began to examine it, listlessly
at first, then with extreme interest.

“Why, Christoph,” he exclaimed indignantly, “this is one
of minel”

One afternoon, a few days after Christmas, I visited the
Wassertorstrasse again. The lamps were alight already, as
I turned in under the archway and entered the long, damp
street, patched here and there with dirty snow. Weak yellow
gleams shone out from the cellar shops. At a hand-cart under
a gas-flare, a cripple was selling vegetables and fruit A
crowd of youths, with raw, sullen faces, st<x>d watching two
boys fighting at a doorway: a girl’s voice screamed excitedly
as one of them tripped and fell. Crossing the muddy court-
yard, inhali ng the moist, familiar rotteimess of the tene-
ment buildings, I thought: Did I really ever live here? Al-
ready, with my comfortable bed-sitting room in the West

129

End and my excellent new job, I had become a stranger to
the slums.

The lights on the Nowaks' staircase were out of order: it
was pitch-dark. I groped my way upstairs without much
difficult)^ and banged on their door. I made as much noise as
I could because, to judge from the shouting and singing and
shrieks of laughter within, a party was in progress.

“Who's there?" bawled Herr Nowak's voice.

“Christoph."

“Aha! Christoph! Anglais! Englisch Man! Come in! Come
m!

The door was flung open. Herr Nowak swayed unsteadily
on the threshhold, with arms open to embrace me. Behind
him stood Crete, shaking like a jelly, with tears of laughter
pouring down her cheeks. There was nobody else to be seen.

“Good old Christoph!" cried Herr Nowak, thumping me on
the back. “I said to Crete: I know he'll come. Christoph
won't desert us!" With a large burlesque gesture of welcome
he pushed me violently into the living-room. The whole place
was fearfully untidy. Clothing of various kinds lay in a con-
fused heap on one of the beds; on the other were scattered
cups, saucers, shoes, knives and forks. On the sideboard was
a nying-pan full of dried fat. The room was lighted by three
candles stuck into empty beer-bottles.

“All light's been cut off," explained Herr Nowak, with a
negligent sweep of his arm; “The bill isn't paid. . . . Must
pay it sometime, of course. Never mind — ^it's nicer like this,
isn't it? Come on, Crete, let's light up the Christmas tree."’

The Christmas tree was the smallest I had ever seen. It
was so tiny and feeble that it could only carry one candle, at
the very top. A single thin strand of tinsel was draped around
it. Herr Nowak dropped several lighted matches on the floor
before he could get the candle to bum. If I hadn't stamped
them out the table-cloth might easily have caught fire.

“Where are Lothar and Otto?" I asked.

“Don't know. Somewhere about. . , . They don't show
themselves mudb, nowadays — ^it doesn't suit them, here.

130

Never mind, were quite happy by ourselves, aren’t we,
Crete?” Herr Nowak executed a few elephantine dance-steps
and began to sing:

“O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum! . . . Come on, Chris-
toph, all together now! Wie treu sind Deine Blatterr

After this was over I produced my presents: cigars for Herr
Nowak, for Crete chocolates and a clockwork mouse. Herr
Nowak then brought out a bottle of beer from under the bed.
After a long search for his spectacles, which were finally
discovered hanging on the water-tap in the kitchen, he read
me a letter which Frau Nowak had written from the sanator-
ium. He repeated every sentence three or four times, got
lost in the middle, swore, blew his nose, and picked his ears.
I could hardly understand a word. Then he and Crete be-
gan playing with the clockwork mouse, letting it run about
the table, shrieking and roaring whenever it neared the edge.
The mouse was such a success that my departure was man-
aged briefly, without any fuss. “Good-bye, Christoph. Come
again soon,” said Herr Nowak and turned back to the table
at once. He and Crete were bending over it with the eager-
ness of gamblers as I made my way out of the attic.

Not long after this I had a call from Otto himself. He had
come to ask me if I would go with him the next Sunday to see
Frau Nowak. The sanatorium had its monthly visiting-day:
there would be a special bus running from Hallesches Tor.

“You needn’t pay for me, you know,” Otto added grandly.
He was fairly shining with self-satisfaction.

“That’s very handsome of you, Otto. ... A new suit?”

“Do you like it?”

“It must have cost a good bit.”

"“Two hundred and fifty marks.”

“My word! Has your ship come home?”

Otto smirked: ‘T’m seeing a lot of Tmde now. Her uncle’s
left her some money. Perhaps, in the spring, we’ll get mar-
ried.”

131

“Congratulations. ... I suppose you’re still living at
home?”

“Oh, I look in there occasionally,” Otto drew down the
comers of his mouth in a grimace of languid distaste, “but
father s always drunk ”

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” I mimicked his tone. We both
laughed.

“My goodness, Christoph, is it as late as that? I must be
getting along. . . . Till Sunday. Be good.”

We arrived at the sanatorium about midday.

There was a bumpy cart-track winding for several kilo-
metres through snowy pine-woods and then, suddenly, a
Gothic brick gateway like the entrance to a churchyard,
with big red buildings rising behind. The bus stopped. Otto
and I were the last passengers to get out. We stood stretching
ourselves and blinking at the bright snow: out here in the
country everything was dazzling white. We were all very
stiff, for the bus was only a covered van, with packing-cases
and school-benches for seats. The seats had not shifted much
during the journey, for we had been packed together as
tightly as books on a shelf.

And now the patients came running out to meet us — awk-
ward padded figures muffled in shawls and blankets, stum-
bb’ng and slithering on the trampled ice of the path. They
were in such a hurry that their blundering charge ended in
a slide. They shot skidding into the arms of their friends
and relations, who staggered under the violence of the col-
lision. One couple, amid shrieks of laughter, had tumbled
over.

“Otto!”

“Mother!”

“So you’ve really come! How well you’re looking!”

“Of course we’ve come, mother! What did you expect?”
Frau Nowak disengaged herself from Otto to shake hands
with me. “How do you do, Herr Christoph?”

132

She looked years younger. Her plump, oval, innocent face,
lively and a trifle crafty, with its small peasant eyes, was
like the face of a young girl. Her cheeks were brightly
dabbed with colour. She smiled as though she could never
stop.

‘"Ah, Herr Christoph, how nice of you to come! How nice
of you to bring Otto to visit me!”

She uttered a brief, queer, hysterical little laugh. We
mounted some steps into the house. The smell of the warm,
clean, antiseptic building entered my nostrils like a breath
of fear.

“They Ve put me in one of the smaller wards,” Frau Nowak
told us. “There’s only four of us altogether. We get up to all
sorts of games.” Proudly throwing open the door, she made
the introductions: “This is Muttchen — she keeps us in order!
And this is Ema. And this is Erika — our baby!”

Erika was a weedy blonde girl of eighteen, who giggled:
“So here’s the famous Otto! WeVe been looking forward to
seeing him for weeks!”

Otto smiled subtly, discreetly, very much at his ease. His
brand new brown suit was vulgar beyond words; so were
his lilac spats and his pointed yellow shoes. On his finger
was an enormous signet-ring with a square, chocolate-
coloured stone. Otto was extremely conscious of it and kept
posing his hand in graceful attitudes, glancing down furtively
to admire the effect. Frau Nowak simply couldn’t leave him
alone. She must keep hugging him and pinching his cheeks.

“Doesn’t he look well!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t he look
splendid! Why, Otto, you’re so big and strong, I believe you
could pick me up with one hand!”

Old Muttchen had a cold, they said. She wore a bandage
round her throat, tight under the high collar of her old-
fashioned black dress. She seemed a nice old lady, but some-
how slightly obscene, like an old dog with sores. She sat on
the edge of her bed with the photographs of her chOdren
and grandchildren on the table beside her, like prizes she
had won. She looked slyly pleased, as though she were glad

133

to be so ill. Frau Nowak told us tliat Muttcben had been
three times in this sanatorium already. Each time she had
been discharged as cured, but within nme months or a year
she would have a relapse and have to be sent back again.

"Some of the cleverest professors in Germany have come
here to examine her,’* Frau Nowak added, with pride, ‘l)ut
you always fool them, don t you, Muttchen dear?"’

The old lady nodded, smiling, like a clever child which is
being praised by its elders.

"And Ema is here for the second time,” Frau Nowak con-
tinued. “The doctors said she'd be all right; but she didn't
get enough to eat. So now she's come back to us, haven't
you, Ema?”

“Yes, I've come back,” Ema agreed.

She was a skinny, bobbed-haired woman of about thirty-
five, who must once have been very feminine, appealing,
wistful, and soft. Now, in her extreme emaciation, she
seemed possessed by a kind of desperate resolution, a cer-
tain defiance. She had immense, dark, hungry eyes. The
wedding-ring was loose on her bony finger. When she talked
and became excited her hands flitted tirelessly about in
sequences of aimless gestures, like two shrivelled moths.

“My husband beat me and then ran away. The night he
went he gave me such a thrashing that I had the marks after-
wards for months. He was such a great strong man. He nearly
killed me.” She spoke calmly, deliberately, yet with a cer-
tain suppressed excitement, never taking her eyes from my
face. Her hungry glance bored into my brain, reading eagerly
what I was thiiik^g. “I dream about him now, sometimes,”
she added, as if faintly amused.

Otto and I sat down at the table while Frau Nowak fussed
around us with coffee and cakes which one of the sisters had
brought. Everything which happened to me to-day was
curiously without impact: my senses were muffled, insulated,
functioning as if in a vivid dream. In this calm, white room,
with its great windows looking out over the silent snowy
pine-woods — ^the Christmas-tree on the table, the paper

134

festoons above the beds, the nailed-up photographs, the
plate of heart-shaped chocolate biscuits — ^these four women
lived and moved. My eyes could explore every comer of their
world: the temperature-charts, the fire extinguisher, the
leather screen by the door. Dressed daily in their best clothes,
their clean hands no longer pricked by the needle or
roughened from scrubbing, they lay out on the terrace, lis-
tening to the wireless, forbidden to talk. Women being
shut up together in this room had bred an atmosphere which
was faintly nauseating, like soiled linen locked in a cup-
board without air. They were playful with each other and
shrill, like overgrown schoolgirls. Frau Nowak and Erika
indulged in sudden furtive bouts of ragging. They plucked at
•each other s clothes, scuffled silently, exploded into shrilly
strained laughter. They were showing ofiF in front of us.

“You don t know how we Ve looked forward to to-day,"^
Ema told me. “To see a real live man!”

Frau Nowak giggled.

“Erika was such an innocent girl until she came here. . . .
You didn’t know anything, did you, Erika?”

Erika sniggered.

“Tve learnt enough since then. , .

“Yes, I should think you have! Would you believe it, Herr
Christoph — ^her aunt sent her this little mannikin for Christ-
mas, and now she takes it to bed with her every night, be-
cause she says she must have a man in her bed!”

Erika laughed boldly. “Well, it s better than nothing, isn’t

itr

She winked at Otto, who rolled his eyes, pretending to be
shocked.

After lunch Frau Nowak had to put in an hours rest. So
Ema and Erika took possession of us for a walk in the grounds.
“Well show them the cemetery first,” Eraa said.

The cemetery was for pet animals belonging to the sana-
torium staff which had died. There were about a dozen

135

Kttle crosses and tombstones, pencilled with mock-heroic
inscriptions in verse. Dead birds were buried there and
white mice and rabbits, and a bat which had been found
frozen after a storm.

‘It makes you feel sad to think of them lying there, doesn’t
it?” said Ema. She scooped away the snow from one of the
graves. There were tears in her eyes.

But, as we walked away down the path, both she and
Erika were very gay. We laughed and threw snowballs at
each other. Otto picked up Erika and pretended he was
going to throw her into a snowdrift. A little further on we
passed close to a summerhouse, standing back from the path
on a mound among the trees. A man and a woman were just
coming out of it.

“That’s Frau Klemke,” Ema told me. “She’s got her hus-
band here to-day. Just diink, that old hut’s the only place in
the whole grounds where two people can be alone to-
gether. . , .”

“It must be pretty cold in this weather.”

“Of course it is! To-morrow her temperature will be up
again and she’ll have to stay in bed for a fortnight. . . . But
who cares! If I were in her place I’d do the same myself.”
Erna squeezed my arm: “We’ve got to live while we’re young,
haven’t we?”

“Of course we have!”

Ema looked up quickly into my face; her big dark eyes
fastened on to mine like hooks; I could imagine I felt them
pulling me down.

“I’m not really a consumptive, you know, Christoph. . . •
You didn’t think I was, did you, just because I’m here?”

“No, Ema, of course I didn’t.”

“Lots of the girls here aren’t. They just need looking after
for a bit, like me. . . . The doctor says that if I take care of
myself I shall be as strong as ever I was. . . . And what do
you think the first thing is I shall do when they let me out
ofherer

136

"Whatr

"First I shall get my divorce, and then I shall find a hus-
band.” Ema laughed, with a Idnd of bitter triumph. "That
wonT take me long — can promise you!”

After tea we sat upstairs in the ward. Frau Nowak had
borrowed a gramophone so that we could dance. I danced
with Ema. Erika danced with Otto. She was tomboyish and
clumsy, laughing loudly whenever she slipped or trod on
his toes. Otto, sleekly smiling, steered her backwards and for-
wards with skill, his shoulders hunched in the fashionable
chimpanzee stoop of Hallesches Tor. Old Muttchen sat look-
ing on from her bed. When I held Ema in my arms I felt
her shivering all over. It was almost dark now, but nobody
suggested turning on the light.

After a while we stopped dancing and sat round in a circle
on the beds. Frau Nowak had begun to talk about her child-
hood days, when she had lived with her parents on a farm
in East Prussia. "We had a saw-mill of our own,” she told
us, “and thirty horses. My father s horses were the best in
the district; he won prizes with them, many a time, at the
show. . . The ward was quite dark now. The windows
were big pale rectangles in the darkness. Erna, sitting beside
me on the bed, felt down for my hand and squeezed it; then
she reached behind me and drew my arm round her body.
She was trembling violently. “Christoph . . she whisper^
in my ear,

". . . and in the summer time,” Frau Nowak was saying,
"w^e used to go dancing m the big bam do\ra by the
river. . .

My mouth pressed against Ema s hot, dry lips. I had no
particular sensation of contact: all this w’as part of the long,
rather sinister symbolic dream which I seemed to have been
dreaming throughout the day. “Fm so happy, this eve-
ning. . . Ema whispered.

137

‘The postmaster s son used to play the fiddle,” said Frau
Nowak. “He played beautifully ... it made you want to
cry, . . .”

From the bed on which Erika and Otto were sitting came
sounds of scuffling and a loud snigger: “Otto, you naughty
boy. . . . Im surprised at you! I shall tell your mother!”

Five minutes later a sister came to tell us that the bus
was ready to start.

“My word, Christoph,” Otto whispered to me, as we were
putting on our overcoats, “I could have done anything I
liked with that girl! I felt her all over. . . . Did you have a
good time with yours? A bit skinny, wasn’t she — ^but I bet
she’s hot stiffl!”

Then we were clambering into the bus with the other pas-
sengers. The patients crowded round to say good-bye.
Wrapped and hooded in their blankets, they might have
been the members of an aboriginal forest tribe.

Frau Nowak had begun crying, though she tried hard to
smile.

“Tell father I’ll be back soon. . . .”

“Of course you will, mother! You’ll soon be well now.
You’ll soon be home.”

“It’s only a short time . . •” sobbed Frau Nowak; the tears
running down over her hideous frog-like smile. And sud-
denly she started coughing — ^her body seemed to break in
half like a hinged doll. Clasping her hands over her breast,
she uttered short yelping coughs like a desperate injured
animal. The blanket slipped back from her head and shoul-
ders: a wisp of hair, working loose from the knot, was get-
ting into her eyes — she shook her head blindly to avoid it.
Two sisters gently tried to lead her away, but at once she
began to struggle furiously. She wouldn’t go with them.

“Go in, mother,” begged Otto. He was almost in tears him-
self. “Please go in! You’ll catch your death of cold!”

“Write to me sometimes, won’t you, Christoph?” Ema was

13S

clutching my hand as though she were drowning. Her eyes
looked up at me with a terrifying intensity of unashamed
despair. ‘‘It doesn’t matter if it s only a postcard . . . just sign
your name.”

“Of course I will. . .

They all thronged round us for a moment in the little
circle of light from the panting bus, their lit faces ghastly
like ghosts against the black stems of the pines. This was
the climax of my dream: the instant of nightmare in which
it would end. I had an absurd pang of fear that they were
going to attack us — a gang of terrifyingly soft muffled shapes
— clawing us from our seats, dragging us hungrily dowm, in
dead silence. But the moment passed. They drew back —
harmless, after all, as mere ghosts — into the "darkness, while
our bus, with a great churning of its wheels, lurched for-
ward towards the city, through the deep unseen snow.

THE LANDAUERS

One night in October 1930, about a month after the Elec-
tions, there was a big row on the Leipzigerstrasse. Gangs of
Nazi roughs turned out to demonstrate against the Jews.
They manhandled some dark-haired, large-nosed pedestrians,
and smashed the windows of all the Jewish shops. The in-
cident was not, in itself, very remarkable; there were no
deaths, very little shooting, not more than a couple of dozen
arrests. I remember it only because it was my first introduc-
tion to Berlin politics, ^

Frl. Mayr, of course, was delighted: “Serve them right!

139

she exclaimed. ‘‘This town is sick with Jews. Turn over any
stone, and a couple of them will crawl out. They’re poisoning
the very water we drink! They’re strangling us, they’re rob-
bing us, they’re sucking our life-blood. Look at all the big
department stores: Wertheim, K.D.W., Landauers’. Who
owns them? Filthy thieving Jews!”

“The Landauers are personal friends of mine,” I retorted
icily, and left the room before Frl. Mayr had time to think
of a suitable reply.

This wasn’t strictly true. As a matter of fact, I had never
met any member of the Landauer family in my life. But, be-
fore leaving England, I had been given a letter of introduc-
tion to them by a mutual friend. I mistrust letters of intro-
duction, and should probably never have used this one, if it
hadn’t been for Frl. Mayr’s remark. Now, perversely, I de-
cided to write to Frau Landauer at once.

Natalia Landauer, as I saw her, for the first time, three
days later, was a schoolgirl of eighteen. She had dark fluffy
hair; far too much of it — ^it made her face, with its sparkling
eyes, appear too long and too narrow. She reminded me of
a young fox. She shook hands straight from the shoulder in
the modem student manner. “In here, please.” Her tone
was peremptory and brisk.

The sitting-room was large and cheerful, pre-War in taste,
a little over-furnished. Natalia had begun talking at once,
with terrific animation, in eager stumbling English, showing
me gramophone records, pictures, books. I wasn’t allowed
to look at anything for more than a moment;

“You like Mozart? Yes? Oh, I also! Vairy much! . . , These
picture is in the Kronprinz Palast. You have not seen it? I
shall show you one day, yes? . . . You are fond of Heine?
Say quite truthfully, please.” She looked up from the book-
case, smiling, but with a certain schoolmarm severity: “Read.
It’s beautiful, I find.”

I hadn’t been in the house for more than quarter of an

140

hour before Natalia had put aside four books for me to take
with me when I left — Tonio Kroger, Jacobsen's stories, a
volume of Stefan George, Goethe’ s letters. ‘"You are to tell
me your truthful opinion,” she warned me.

Suddenly, a maid parted the sliding glass doors at the end
of the room, and we found ourselves in the presence of Frau
Landauer, a large, pale woman with a mole on her left cheek
and her hair brushed back smooth into a knot, seated
placidly at the dining-room table, filling glasses from a samo»
var with tea. There were plates of ham and cold cut wurst
and a bowl of those thin wet slippery sausages w’hich squirt
you with hot water when their skins are punctured by a fork;
as well as cheese, radishes, pumpernickel and bottled beer.
*Tou will drink beer,” Natalia ordered, returning one of the
glasses of tea to her mother.

Looking round me, I noticed that the few available wall-
spaces between pictures and cupboards were decorated with
eccentric life-size figures, maidens with flying hair or oblique-
eyed gazelles, cut out of painted paper and fastened down
with drawing-pins. They made a comically ineffectual pro-
test against the bourgeois solidity of the mahogany furniture.
I knew, without being told, that Natalia must have designed
them. Yes, she’d made them and fixed them up there for a
party; now she wanted to take them down, but her mother
wouldn’t let her. They had a little argument about this —
evidently part of the domestic routine. “Oh, but they’re
tairrible, I find!” cried Natalia, in English. “I think they’re
very pretty,” replied Frau Landauer placidly, in German,
without raising her eyes from the plate, her mouth full of
pumpernickel and radish.

As soon as we had finished supper, Natalia made it clear
that I was to say a formal good-night to Frau Landauer. We
then returned to the sitting-room. She began to cross-examine
me. Where was my room? How much was I paying for it?
When I told her, she said immediately that I’d chosen quite
the wrong district (Wilmersdorf was far better), and that
I’d been swindled. I could have got exactly the same thing,

141

with ruiming water and central heating thrown in, for the
same price. “You should have asked me,” she added, ap-
parently quite forgetting that we’d met that evening for the
first time: “I should have found it for you myself ”

“Your friend tells us you are a writer?” Natalia challenged
suddenly.

“Not a real writer,” I protested.

“But you have written a book? Yes?”

Yes, I had written a book.

Natalia was triumphant: “You have written a book and you
say you are not a writer. You are mad, I think.”

Then I had to tell her the whole history of All the Con-
spirators, why it had that title, what it was about, when it
was published, and so forth.

“You will bring me a copy, please.”

“I haven’t got one,” I told her, with satisfaction, “and it’s
out of print.”

This rather dashed Natalia for the moment, then she
sniffed eagerly at a new scent: “And this what you will write
in Berlin? Tell me, please.”

To satisfy her, I began to tell the story of a story I had
written years before, for a college magazine at Cambridge. I
improved it as much as possible extempore, as I went along.
Telling this story again quite excited me — so much that I
began to feel that the idea in it hadn’t been so bad after all,
and that I might really be able to rewrite it. At the end of
every sentence, Natalia pressed her lips tight together and
nodded her head so violently that the hair flopped up and
down over her face.

“Yes, yes,” she kept saying. “Yes, yes.”

It was only after some minutes that I realized she wasn’t
taking in anything I said. She evidently couldn’t understand
my English, for I was talking much faster now, and not
choosing my words. In spite of her tremendous devotional
effort of concentration, I could see that she was noticing the
way I parted my hair, and that my tie was worn shiny at the
knot. She even flashed a furtive glance at my shoes. I pre-

142

tended, however, not to be aware of all this. It would have
been rude to stop short and most unkind to spoil Natalias
pleasure in the mere fact that I was talking so intimately to
her about something which really interested me, although
we were practically strangers.

When I had finished, she asked at once: ‘"And it will be
ready — ^how soon?” For she had taken possession of the
story, together with all my other affairs. I answered that I
didn’t know. I was lazy.

“You are lazy?” Natalia opened her eyes mockingly. “So?
Then I am sorry. I can’t help you.”

Presently, I said that I must go. She came with me to the
door: “And you will bring me this story soon,” she persisted.

“Yes.”

“How soon?”

“Next week,” I feebly promised.

It was a fortnight before I called on the Landauers again.
After dinner, when Frau Landauer had left the room, Natalia
informed me that we were to go together to the cinema.
“We are the guests of my mother.” As we stood up to go, she
suddenly grabbed two apples and an orange from the side-
board and stuffed them into my pockets. She had evidently
made up her mind that I was suffering from undernourish-
ment. I protested weakly.

“When you say another word, I am angry,” she warned me.

“And you have brought it?” she asked, as we were leaving
the house.

Knowing perfectly well that she meant the story, I made
my voice as innocent as I could: “Brought what?”

“You know. What you promise.”

“I don’t remember promising anything ”

“Don’t rememberF" Natalia laughed scornfully. “Then I’m
sorry. I can’t help you.”

By the time we got to the cinema, she had forgiven me,
however. The big film was a Pat and Patachos. Natalia re-
marked severely: “You do not like this kind of film, I think?
It isn’t some thin g clever enough for you?”

143

I denied that I only liked “clever” films, but she was
sceptical: “Good. We shall see.”

All through the film, she kept glancing at me to see if I
was laughing. At first, I laughed exaggeratedly. Then, get-
ting tired of this, I stopped laughing altogether. Natalia got
more and more impatient with me. Towards the end of the
film, she even began to nudge me at moments when I should
laugh. No sooner were the lights turned up, than she pounced:

‘Tou see? I was right. You did not like it, no?”

“I liked it very much indeed.”

“Oh yes, I believe! And now say truthfully.”

“I have told you. I liked it.”

“But you did not laugh. You are sitting always with your
face so . . Natalia tried to imitate me, “and not once
laughing.”

“I never laugh when I am amused,” I said.

“Oh yes, perhaps! That shall be one of your English cus-
toms, not to laugh?”

“No Englishman ever laughs when he"s amused.”

‘Tfou wish I believe that? Then I will tell you your English-
men are mad.”

“That remark is not very original.”

“And must always my remarl^ be so original, my dear sir?"’

“When you are with me, yes.”

“Imbecile!”

We sat for a little in a cafe near the Zoo Station and ate
ices. The ices were lumpy and tasted slightly of potato. Sud-
denly, Natalia began to talk about her parents:

“I do not understand what this modem books mean when
they say: the mother and father always must have quarrel
with the children. You know, it would be impossible that I
can have quarrel with my parents. Impossible.”

Natalia looked hard at me to see whether I believed this.
I nodded.

“Absolute impossible,” she repeated solemnly. “Because I
know that my father and my mother love me. And so they
are thinking always not of themselves but of what is for me

144

the best. My mother, you know, she is not strong. She is
having sometimes the most tairrible headaches. And then, of
course, I cannot leave her alone. Vairy often, I would like to
go out to a cinema or theatre or concert, and my mother, she
say nothing, but I look at her and see that she is not well, and
so I say No, I have change my mind, I will not go. But never
it happens that she say one word about the pain she is suf-
fered. Never.”

(When next 1 called on the Landauers, I spent two marks
fifty on roses for Natalia s mother. It was worth it. Never once
did Frau Landauer have a headache on an evening when I
proposed going out with Natalia.)

"‘My father will always that I have the best of every-
thing,” Natalia continued. “My father will always that I
say: My parents are rich, I do not need to think for money.”
Natalia sighed: “But 1 am diflEerent than this. I await always
that the worst will come. I know how things are in Germany
to-day, and suddenly it can be that my father lose all. You
know, that is happened once already? Before the War, my
father has had a big factory in Posen. The War comes, and
my father has to go. To-morrow, it can be here the same. But
my father, he is such a man that to him it is equal. He can
start with one pfennig and work and work untO he gets all
back.”

“And that is why,” Natalia went on, “I wish to leave school
and begin to learn something useful, that I can win my bread.
I cannot know how long my parents have money. My father
will that I make my Abitur and go to the university. But now
I will speak with him and ask if I cannot go to Paris and
study art. If I can draw and paint I can perhaps make my
life; and also I will learn cookery. Do you know that I can-
not cook, not the simplest thingF

“Neither can I.”

“For a man, that is not so important, I find. But a girl must
be prepared for all.”

“If I want,” added Natalia earnestly, “I shall go away with
the man I love I shall live with him; even if we cannot

145

become married it will not matter. Then I must be able to do
all for myself, you understand? It is not enough to say: I have
made my Abitur, I have my degree at the university. He will
answer: ‘Please, where is my chnner? ”

There was a pause.

“You are not shocked at what I say just now,*" asked
Natalia suddenly. “That I would live with a man without that
we were married?”

“No, of course not.”

“Do not misunderstand me, please. I do not admirate the
women who is going always from one man to another — ^that
is all so,” NataHa made a gesture of distaste, “so degenerated,
I find.”

“You don’t think that women should be allowed to change
their minds?”

“I do not know. I do not understand such questions. . . .
But it is degenerated.”

I saw her home. Natalia had a trick of leading you right up
on to the doorstep, and then, with extraordinary rapidity,
shaking hands, whisking into the house and slamming the
door m your face.

“You ring me up? Next week? Yes?” I can hear her voice
now. And dien the door slammed and she was gone without
waiting for an answer.

Natalia avoided all contacts, direct and indirect. Just as
she wouldn’t stand chatting with me on her own doorstep,
she preferred always, I noticed, to have a table between us
if we sat down. She hated me to help her into her coat: “I
am not yet sixty years, my dear sir!” If we stood up to leave a
cafe or a restaurant and she saw my eye moving towards
the peg from which her coat hung, she would pounce in-
stantly upon it and carry it oflE with her into a comer, like an
animal guarding its food.

One evening, we went into a cafe and ordered two cups of
chocolate. When the chocolate came, we found that the

146

waitress had forgotten to bring Natalia a spoon. Td already
sipped my cup and had stirred it with my spoon after sipping
it. It seemed quite natural to offer my spoon to Natalia, and
I was surprised and a little impatient when she refused it
with an expression of slight distaste. She declined even this
indirect contact with my mouth.

Natalia got tickets for a concert of Mozart concertos. The
evening was not a success. The severe Corinthian hall was
chilly, and my eyes were uncomfortably dazzled by the classic
brilliance of the electric lights. The shiny wooden chairs were
austerely hard. The audience plainly regarded the concert as
a religious ceremony. Their taut, devotional enthusiasm op-
pressed me like a headache; I couldn’t, for a moment, lose
consciousness of all those blind, half-frowning, listening
heads. And, despite Mozart, I couldn’t help feeling: What
an extraordinary way this is of spending an evening!

On the way home, I was tired and sulky, and this resulted
in a little tiff with Natalia. She began it by talking about
Hippi Bernstein. It was Natalia who had got me my job with
the Bernsteins: she and Hippi went to the same school. A
couple of days before, I had given Hippi her first English
lesson.

‘‘And how do you like heri^ Natalia asked.

"Very much. Don’t you?”

"Yes, I also. . . . But she s got two bad faults. I think you
will not have notice them yet?”

As I didn’t rise to this, she added solemnly; "You know, I
wish you would tell me truthfully what are my faults?”

In another mood, I should have found this amusing, and
even rather touching. As it was, I only thought: “She’s fish-
ing,” and snapped:

"I don’t know what you mean by ‘faults.’ I don’t judge
people on a half-term-report basis. You’d better ask one of
your teachens ”

This shut Natalia up for the moment But, presently,
she started again. Had I r^d any of the books she’d lent
me?

147

I hadn’t, but said: Yes, Td read Jacobsens Frau Marie
Gruhhe,

And what did I think of it?

“It s very good,” I said, peevish because guilty.

Natalia looked at me sharply: “Fm afraid you are vairy in-
sincere. You do not give your real meaning.”

I was suddenly, childishly cross:

“Of course I don’t. Why should I? Arguments bore me. I
don’t intend to say anything which you’re hkely to disagree
with.”

“But if that is so,” she was really dismayed, “then it is no
use for us to speak of anything seriously.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“Then shall we not talk at all?” asked poor Natalia.

“The best of all,” I said, “would be for us to make noises
like farmyard animals. I like hearing the sound of your voice
but I don’t care a bit what you’re saying. So it’d be far better
if we just said Bow-wow and Baa and Meaow!*

Natalia flushed. She was bewildered and deeply hurt
Presently, after a long silence, she said; “Yes. I see.”

As we approached her house, I tried to patch things up
and turn the whole business into a joke, but she didn’t
respond. I went home feeling very much ashamed of myself.

Some days after this, however, Natalia rang up of her
own accord and asked me to lunch. She opened the door
herself — ^she had evidently been waiting to do so — and
greeted me by exclaiming: “Bow-wowl Baa! Meaow!”

For a moment, I really thought she must have gone mad.
Then I remembered our quarrel. But Natalia, having made
her joke, was quite ready to be friends again.

We went into the sittmg-room, and she began putting
aspirin tablets into the bowls of flowers — ^to revive them,
she said. I asked what she’ d been doing during the last few
days.

“All this week,” said Natalia, ‘T am not going in the school.

148

I have been unwell. Three days ago, I stand there by the
piano, and suddenly I fall down — so. How do you say —
ohnmdchtigF*

‘Tou mean, you fainted?”

Natalia nodded vigorously; ^Tfes, that's right. I am ohn-
mdchtig”

“But in that case you ought to be in bed now.” I felt sud-
denly very masculine and protective: “How are you feeling?”

Natalia laughed gaily, and, certainly, I had never seen her
looking better:

“Oh, it's not so important!”

“There is one thing I must tell you,” she added. “It shall be
a nice surprise for you, I think — ^to-day is coming my father,
and my cousin Bernhard.”

“How very nice.”

“Yes! Is it not? My father makes us great joy when he
comes, for now he is often on travel. He has much business
everywhere, in Paris, in Vienna, in Prague. Always he must
be going in the train. You shall like him, I think.”

“Tm certain I shall.”

And sure enough, when the glass doors parted, there was
Herr Landauer, waiting to receive me. Beside him stood
Bernhard Landauer, Natalia's cousin, a tall pale young man
in a dark suit, only a few years older than myself. “I am very
pleased to make your acquaintance,” Bernhard said, as we
shook hands. He spoke English without the faintest trace of
a foreign accent.

Herr Landauer was a small lively man, with dark leathery
wrinkled skin, like an old well-pohshed boot. He had shiny
brown boot-button eyes and low-comedian's eyebrows — ^so
thick and black that they looked as if th^ had been touched
up with burnt cork. It was evident that he adored his family.
He opened the door for Frau Landauer in a way which sug-
gested that she was a very beautiful young girl. His benev-
olent, delighted smile embraced the whole party— Natalia
spariding with joy at her father's return, Frau Landauer
faintly flushed, Bernhard smooth and pale and politely eiug-

149

matic: even I myself was included. Indeed, Herr Landauer
addressed almost the whole of his conversation to me, care-
fully avoiding any reference to family affairs which might
have reminded me that I was a stranger at his table.

“Thirty-five years ago I was in England,"' he told me,
speaking with a strong accent. “I came to your capital to
write a thesis for my doctorate, on the condition of Jewish
workers in the East End of London. I saw a great deal that
your English oflBcials did not desire me to see. I was quite
a young fellow then: younger, I suspect, than you are to-day.
I had some exceedingly interesting conversations with dock-
hands and prostituted women and the keepers of your so-
called Public Houses. Very interesting. . . Herr Landauer
smiled reminiscently; “And this insignificant little thesis of
mine caused a great deal of discussion. It has been translated
into no less than five languages."

“Five languages!" repeated Natalia, in German, to me.
“You see, my fattier is a writer, tool"

“Ah, that was thirty-five years ago! Long before you were
bom, my dear." Herr Landauer shook bis head deprecat-
ingly, his boot-button eyes twinkling with benevolence:
“Now I have not the time for such studies." He turned to me
again: “I have just been reading a book in the French lan-
guage about your great English poet. Lord Byron. A most
interesting book. Now I should be very glad to have your
opinion, as a writer, on this most important question — ^was
Lord Byron guilty of the crime of incest? What do you think,
Mr. Isherwood?"

I felt myself beginning to blush. For some odd reason, it
was the presence of Frau Landauer, placidly chewing her
lunch, not of Natalia, which chiefly embarrassed me at this
moment. Bernhard kept his eyes on his plate, subtly smiling.
“Well," I began, “it's rather diflBcult. . . ."

“This is a very interesting problem," interrupted Herr
Landauer, looking benevolentty round upon us all and masti-
cating wilh the greatest satisfaction: “Shall we allow that the
man of genius is an exceptional person who may do excep-

150

tional things? Or shall we say: No — ^you may write a beauti-
ful poem or paint a beautiful picture, but in your daily life
you must behave Kke an ordinary person, and you must obey
these laws which we have made for ordinary persons? We
will not allow you to be exfra-ordinary/' Herr Landauer
fixed each of us in turn, triumphantly, his mouth full of food.
Suddenly his eyes focussed beamingly upon me: “Your dram-
atist Oscar Wilde . . . this is another case. I put this case
to you, Mr. Isherwood. I should like very much to hear your
opinion. Was your English Law justified in punishing Oscar
Wilde, or was it not justified? Please tell me what you think?""

Herr Landauer regarded me delightedly, a forkful of meat
poised half-way up to his mouth. In the background, I was
aware of Bernhard, discreetly smiling.

“Well . . I began, feeling my ears burning red. This
time, however, Frau Landauer unexpectedly saved me, by
making a remark to Natalia in German, about the vegetables.
There was a little discussion, during which Herr Landauer
seemed to forget all about his question. He went on eating
contentedly. But now Natalia must needs chip in:

“Please tell my father the name of your book. I could not
remember it. Ifs such a funny name.”

I tried to direct a private frown of disapproval at her
which the others would not notice. “AH the Conspirators,** I
said, coldly.

“AZZ the Conspirators ... oh, yes, of course!”

“Ah, you write criminal romances, Mr. Isherwood?” Herr
Landauer beamed approvingly.

“Tm afraid this book has nothing to do with criminals,” I
said, politely. Herr Landauer looked puzzled and disap-
pointed: “Not to do with criminals?”

“You \vill explain to him, please,” Natalia ordered.

I drew a long breath: “The tide was meant to be sjmbolic.

. . . It s taken from Shakespeare"s Julius Caesar, . . ”

Herr Landauer brightened at once: “Ah, Shakespeare!
Splendid! This is most interesting. . . ”

“In German,” I smiled slighdy at my own cunning: I was

151

luring him down a side-track, “you have wonderful transla-
tions of Shakespeare, I believe?"’

“Indeed, yes! These translations are among the finest works
in our language. Thanks to them, your Shakespeare has be-
come, as it were, almost a German poet. .

“But you do not tell,” Natalia persisted, with what seemed
really devilish malice, “what your book is about?”

I set my teeth: “It’s about two young men. One of them
is an artist and the other a student of medicine.”

“Are these the only two persons in your book, then?”
Natalia asked.

“Of course not. . . . But I’m surprised at your bad mem-
ory. I told you the whole story only a short time ago.”

“Imbecile! It is not for myself I ask. Naturally, I remember
all what you have told me. But my father has not yet heard.
So you will please tell. . . . And what is then?”

“The artist has a mother and a sister. They are all very
unhappy.”

“But why are they unhappy? My father and my motlier and
I, we are not unhappy.”

I wished the earth would swallow her: “Not all people
are alike,” I said carefully, avoiding Herr Landauer’s eye.

“Good,” said Natalia. “They are unhappy. . . . And what
is then?”

“The artist runs away from home and his sister gets mar-
ried to a very unpleasant young man.”

Natalia evidently saw lhat I wouldn’t stand much more
of this. She delivered one final pin-prick: “And how many
copies d'd you sell?”

“Five.”

“Five! But that is very few, isn’t it?”

“Very few indeed.”

At the end of lunch, it seemed tacitly understood that
Bernhard and his uncle and aunt were to discuss family af-
fairs together. “Do you like,” Natalia asked me, “that we shall
walk together a little?”

Herr Landauer took a ceremonial farewell of me: “At all

152

times, Mr. Isherwood, you are welcome under my roof.” We
both bowed profoundly.

‘‘Perhaps,” said Bernhard, giving me his card, “you would
come one evening and enliven my solitude for a little?” I
thanked him and said that I should be delighted.

“And what do you think of my father?” Natalia asked, as
soon as we were out of the house.

“I think he’s the nicest father I’ve ever met.”

“You do truthfully?” Natalia was delighted.

“Yes, truthfully.”

“And now coiifess to me, my father shocked you when he
was speaking of Lord Byron — ^no? You were quite red as a
lobster in your cheeks,”

I laughed: “Your father makes me feel old-fashioned. His
conversation’s so modem.”

Natalia laughed triumphantly: “You see, I was right! You
were shocked. Oh, I am so glad! You see, I say to my father:
A vairy intelligent young man is coming here to see us — ^and
so he wish to show you Aat he also can be modern and speak
of all this subjects. You thought my father would be a stupid
old man? Tell the tmth, please.”

“No,” I protested. “I never thought that!”

“Well, he is not stupid, you see. ... He is vaiiy^ clever.
Only he does not have so much time for reading, because he
must work always. Sometimes he must work eighteen and
nineteen hours in the day; it is tairrible. . . . And he is the
best father in the whole world!”

“Your cousin Bernhard is your fathers partner, isn’t
he?”

Natalia nodded: “It is he who manages the store, here in
Berlin. He also is vairy clever.”

“I suppose you see a good deal of him?”

“No. . , . It is not often that he come to our house. . . •
He is a strange man, you know? I think he like to be vairy
much alone. I am surprise when he ask you to make him a
visit. . . . You must be careful.”

“Careful? Why on earth should I be careful?”

153

“He is vairy sarcastical, you see. I think perhaps he laugh
at you.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be very terrible, would it? Plenty of
people laugh at me. . . . You do, yourself, sometimes.”

“Oh, I! That is different.” Natalia shook her head solemnly;
she evidently spoke from unpleasant experience. “When I
laugh, it is to make fim, you know? But when Bernhard laugh
at you, it is not nice. . . ”

• • •

Bernhard had a flat in a quiet street not far from the Tier-
garten. When I rang at the outer entrance, a gnome-like
caretaker peeped up at me through a tiny basement window,
asked whom I wished to visit, and finally, after regarding me
for a few moments with profound mistrust, pressed a button
releasing the lock of the outer door. This door was so heavy
that I had to push it open with both hands; it closed behind
me with a hollow boom, like the firing of a cannon. Then
came a pair of doors opening into the courtyard, then the
door of the Gartenhaus, then five flights of stairs, then
the door of the fiat. Four doors to protect Bernhard from the
outer world.

This evening, he was wearing a beautifully embroidered
kimono over his town clothes. He was not quite as I remem-
bered him from our first meeting:' I hadn’t see him, then,
as being in the least oriental — the kimono, I suppose, brought
this out. His over-civilized, prim, finely drawn, beaky profile
gave him something of the air of a bird in a piece of Chinese
embroidery. He was soft, negative, I thought, yet curiously
potent, with the static potency of a carved ivory figure in a
shrine. I noticed again his beautiful English, and the depre-
catory gestures of his hands, as he showed me a tweffth-
century sandstone head of Buddha from Khmer which stood
at the foot of his bed — ^Tkeeping watch over my slumbers.”
On the low white bookcase were little Greek and Siamese and
Indo-Chinese statuettes and stone heads, most of which
Bernhard had brought home with him from his travels,

154

Amongst volumes of Kunst-Geschichte, photograpluc repro-
ductions and monographs on sculpture and antiquities, I saw
Vachells The Hill and Lenin s What Is to Be Done? The fiat
might well have been in the depths of the country: you
couldn’t hear the faintest outside sound. A staid housekeeper
in an apron served supper. I had soup, fish, a chop and
savoury; Bernhard drank milk, ate only tomatoes and rusks.

We talked of London, which Bernhard had never visited,
and of Paris, where he had studied for a time in a sculptor’s
atelier. In his youth, he had wanted to be a sculptor, "but,’'
Bernhard sighed, smiled gently, “Providence has ordained
otherwise.”

I wanted to talk to him about the Landauer business, but
didn’t — ^fearing it might not be tactful. Bernhard himself re-
ferred to it, however, in passing: “You must pay us a visit,
one day, if it would interest you — ^for I suppose that it is
interesting, if only as a contemporary economic phenome-
non.” He smiled, and his face was masked with exhaustion:
the thought crossed my mind that he was perhaps suffering
from a fatal disease.

Alter supper, he seemed brighter, however; he began tell-
ing me about his travels. A few years before, he had been
right round the world — gently inquisitive, mildly satiric, pok-
ing his delicate beak-like nose into everything; Jewish village
communities in Palestine, Jewish settlements on the Black
Sea, revolutionary committees in India, rebel armies in
Mexico. Hesitating, delicately choosing his words, he de-
scribed a conversation with a Chinese ferryman about de-
mons, and a barely credible instance of the brutality of the
police in New York.

Four or five times during the evening, the telephone beU
rang, and, on each occasion, it seemed that Bernhard was
being asked for help and advice. “Come and see me to-
morrow,” he said, in his tired, soothing voice. “Yes. . . . Ym
sure it can all be arranged. . . . And now, please don’t worry
any more. Go to bed and sleep. I prescribe two or three tab-
lets of aspirin. . . «” He smiled softly, ironically. Evidently

155

lie was about to lend each of his applicants some money.

‘‘And please tell me/" he asked, just before I left, “if I am
not being impertinent — ^what has made you come to live in
Berlin?""

“To learn German,” I said. After Natalia’s warning, I
wasn’t going to trust Bernhard with the history of my life.

“And you are happy here?”

“Very happy.”

“That is wonderful, I think. . . . Most wonderful . .
Bernhard laughed his gentle ironical laugh: “A spirit pos-
sessed of such vitality 3iat it can be happy, even in Berlin.
You must teach me your secret. May I sit at your feet and
learn wisdom?”

His smile contracted, vanished. Once again, the impassiv-
ity of mortal weariness fell like a shadow across his strangely
youthful face. “I hope,” he said, “that you will ring me up
whenever you have nothing better to do.”

• • •

Soon after this, I went to call on Bernhard at the business.

Landauers" was an enormous steel and glass building, not
far from the Potsdarner Platz. It took me nearly a quarter of
an hour to find my way through departments of underwear,
outfitting, electrical appliances, sport and cutlery to the pri-
vate world behind the scenes — ^the wholesale, travellers" and
buying rooms, and Bernhards own little suite of offices. A
porter showed me into a small waiting-room, panelled in
some highly polished streaky wood, with a rich blue carpet
and one picture, an engraving of Berlin in the year 1803. After
a few moments, Bernhard himself came in. This morning, he
looked younger, sprucer, in a bow-tie and a light grey suit.
*T hope that you give your approval to this room,"" he said.
“I think that, as I keep so many people waiting here, they
ought at least to have a more or less sympathetic atmosphere
to allay their impatience.”

“It"s very nice,” I said, and added, to make conversation —

156

for I was feeling a little embarrassed: “What kind of wood
is this?"*

“Caucasian Nut/’ Bernhard pronounced the words with
his characteristic primness, veiy precisely. He grinned sud-
denly. He seemed, I thought, in much better spirits: “Come
and see the shop.”

In the hardware department, an overalled woman demon-
strator was exhibiting the merits of a patent coffee-strainer.
Bernhard stopped to ask her how the sales were going, and
she offered us cups of coffee. While I sipped mine, he ex-
plained that I was a well-known coffee-merchant from Lon-
don, and that my opinion would therefore be worth having.
The woman half believed this, at first, but we both laughed
so much that she became suspicious. Then Bernhard dropped
his coffee-cup and broke it. He was quite distressed and
apologized profusely. “It doesn’t matter,” the demonstrator
reassured him — as though he were a minor employee who
might get sacked for his clumsiness: “I’ve got two more.”

Presently we came to the toys. Bernhard told me that he
and his uncle wouldn’t allow toy soldiers or guns to be sold
at Landauers’. Lately, at a directors’ meeting, there had been
a heated argument about toy tanks, and Bernhard had suc-
ceeded in getting his own way. “But this is really the thin
end of the wedge,” he added, sadly, picking up a toy tractor
with caterpillar wheels.

Then he showed me a room in which children could play
while their mothers were shopping. A uniformed nurse was
helping two little boys to build a castle of bricks. “You ob-
serve,” said Bernhard, “that philanthropy is here combined
with advertisement. Opposite this room, we display specially
cheap and attractive hats. The mothers who bring Aeir chil-
dren here fall immediately into temptation. . . • Im afraid
you will think us sadly materialistic. . .

I asked why there was no book department.

“Because we dare not have one. My uncle knows that I
should remain there all day.”

151

All over the stores, there were brackets of coloured lamps,
red, green, blue and yellow. I asked what they were for, and
Bernhard explained that each of these lights was the signal
for one of the heads of the firm: "I am the blue light. That
is, perhaps, to some degree, symbolic.” Before I had time to
ask what he meant, the blue lamp we were looking at began
to flicker. Bernhard went to the nearest telephone and was
told that somebody wished to speak to him in his oflSce. So
we said good-bye. On the way out, I bought a pair of socks.

During the early part of that winter, I saw a good deal of
Bernhard. I cannot say that I got to know him much better
through these evenings spent together. He remained curi-
ously remote from me — ^his face impassive with exhaustion
under the shaded lamplight, his gentle voice moving on
through sequences of mildly humorous anecdotes. He would
describe, for instance, a lunch with some friends who were
very strict Jews. "‘Ah,” Bernhard had said, conversationally,
“so we re having lunch out of doors to-day? How delightful!
The weather s still so warm for the time of year, isn't it? And
your garden s looking lovely.” Then, suddenly, it had oc-
curred to him that his hosts were regarding him rather sourly,
and he remembered, with horror, mat th^ was the Feast of
Tabernacles.

I laughed. I was amused. Bernhard told stories very well.
But, all the time, I was aware of feeling a certain impatience.
Why does he treat me like a child, I thought. He treats us
all as children — his uncle and aunt, Natalia, myself. He tells
us stories. He is sympathetic, charming. But his gestures,
offering me a glass of wine or a cigarette, are clothed in
arrogance, in the arrogant humility of the East. He is not
going to tell me what he is really thinking or feeling, and he
despises me because I do not know. He will never tell me
anything about himself, or about the things which are most
important to him. And because I am not as he is, because I
am the opposite of this, and would gladly share my thoughts

158

and sensations with forty million people if they cared to
read them, I half admire Bernhard but also half dislike him.

We seldom talked about the political condition of Ger-
many, but, one evening, Bernhard told me a story of the days
of the civil war. He had been visited by a student friend who
was taking part in the fighting. The student was veiy nerv^ous
and refused to sit down. Presently he confessed to Bernhard
that he had been ordered to take a message through to one
of the newspaper office-buildings which the police were be-
sieging; to reach this office, it would be necessary to climb
and crawl over roofs which were exposed to machine-gun
fire. Naturally, he wasn’t anxious to start. The student was
wearing a remarkably thick overcoat, which Bernhard
pressed him to take off, for the room was well heated and liis
face was literally streaming with sweat. At length, after much
hesitation, the student did so, revealing, to Bernhard’s in-
tense alarm, that the lining of the coat was fitted with inside
pockets stuffed full of hand-grenades. “And the worst of it
was,” said Bernhard, “that he’d made up his mind not to
take any more risks, but to leave the overcoat with me. He
wanted to put it into the bath and turn on the cold water tap.
At last I persuaded him that it would be much better to take
it out after dark and to drop it into the canal — and this he
ultimately succeeded in doing. ... He is now one of the
most distinguished professors in a certain provincial univer-
sity. I am sure that he has long since forgotten tiiis somewhat
embarrassing escapade. . ,

“Were you ever a communist, Bernhard?” I asked.

At once — saw it in his face — ^he was on the defensive.
After a moment, he said slowly:

“No, Christopher. I’m afraid I was always constitutionally
incapable of bringing myself to the required pitch of en-
thusiasm.”

' I felt suddenly impatient with him; angry, even: e^'er

to believe in anjihing?”

Bernhard smiled laintly at my violence. It may have
amused him to have rousea me like this.

159

• • •

“Perhaps. . . Then he added, as if to himself: “No
that is not quite true. . . r

“What do you believe in, then?” I challenged.

Bernhard was silent for some moments, considering this
— ^his beaky delicate profile impassive, his eyes half -closed.
At last he said: “Possibly I believe in discipline.”

“In discipline?”

*You don t understand that, Christopher? Let me try to
explain. ... I believe in discipline for myself, not neces-
sarily for others. For others, I cannot judge. I know only
that I myself must have certain standards which I obey and
without which I am quite lost. . . . Does that sound very
dreadful?**

“No,” I said — ^thinking: He is like Natalia.

“You must not condemn me too harshly, Christopher.” The
mocking smile was spreading over Bernhard's face. “Remem-
ber that I am a cross-breed. Perhaps, after all, there is one
drop of pure Prussian blood in my polluted veins. Perhaps
this little finger,” he held it up to the light, “is the finger of a
Prussian drill-sergeant. . . . You, Christopher, witii your
centuries of Ango-Saxon freedom behind you, with your
Magna Charta engraved upon your heart, cannot understand
that we poor barbarians need the stifEness of a uniform to
keep us standing upright.”

“Why do you always make fun of me, Bernhard?”

“Make fun of you, my dear Christopherl I shouldn't dare!”

Yet, perhaps, on this occasion, he told me a little more than
he had intended.

I had long meditated the experiment of introducing Nata-
lia to Sally Bowles. I think I knew beforehand what the result
of their meeting would be. At any rate, I had the sense not
to invite Fritz Wendel.

We were to meet at a smart cafe in the Kurfiirstendamm.
Natalia was the first to arrive. She was a quarter of an hour
late — probably because she'd wanted to have the advantage

160

of coming last. But she had reckoned without Sally: she
hadn t the nerve to be late in the grand manner. Poor Natalia!
She had tried to make herself look more grown up — ^with the
result that she appeared merely rather dowdy. The long
townified dress she’d put on didn’t suit her at all. On the side
of her head, she had planted a little hat — an unconscious
parody of Sally’s page-boy cap. But Natalia’s hair was much
too fuz2y for it: it rode the waves like a half -swamped boat
on a rough sea.

"How do I look?” she immediately asked, sitting down op-
posite to me, rather flurried.

^^ou look very nice.”

"Tell me, please, truthfully, what will she think of me?”

"She’ll like you very much.”

"How can you say that?” Natalia was indignant “You do
not know!”

"First you want my opinion, and then you say I don't
know!”

"Imbecile! I do not ask for compliments!”

"I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you do ask for.”

"Oh no?” cried Natalia scornfully. ‘Tou do not understand?
Then I am sorry. I can’t help you!”

At this moment, Sally arrived.

"Hilloo, darling,” she exclaimed, in her most cooing ac-
cents, “I’m terribly sorry I’m late — can you forgive me?” She
sat down daintily, enveloping us in wafts of perfume, and
began, with languid miniature gestures, to take off her
gloves: "I’ve been making love to a dirty old Jew producer.
I’m hoping he’ll give me a contract — ^but no go, so tar. . . •”

I kicked Sally hastily, under the table, and she stopped
short, with an expression of absurd dismay— but now, of
course, it was too late. Natalia froze before our eyes. All Fd
said and hinted beforehand, in h>’pothetic pre-excuse of
Sally’s conduct, was instantly made void. After a moment’s
glacial pause, Natalia asked me if Fd seen Sous tes Toits de
Tatis, She spoke German. She wasn’t going to give Sally a
chance of laughing at her English.

161

Sally immediately chipped in, however, quite unabashed.
Shed seen the film, and thought it was marvellous, and
wasn t Prejean marvellous, and did we remember the scene
where a train goes past in the background while they’re
starting to fight? Sally’s German was so much more than
usually awful that I wondered whether she wasn’t deliber-
ately exaggerating it in order, somehow, to make fun of
Natalia.

During the rest of the interview I suffered mental pins
and needles. Natalia hardly spoke at all. Sally prattled on in
her murderous German, maldng what she imagined to be
light general conversation, chiefly about the English film
industry. But as every anecdote involved explaining that
somebody was someone else’s mistress, that this one drank
and that one took drugs, this didn’t make the atmosphere
any more agreeable. I found myself getting increasingly an-
noyed with both of them — ^witb SaUy for her endless silly
pornographic talk; with Natalia for being such a prude. At
length, after what seemed an eternity but was, in fact, barely
twenty minutes, Natalia said that she must be going.

“My God, so must I!” cried Sally, in English. “Chris, dar-
ling, you’ll take me as far as the Eden, won’t you?”

In my cowardly way, I glanced at Natalia, trying to convey
my helplessness. This, I Imew only too well, was going to be
regarded as a test of my loyalty — ^and, already, I had failed it.
Natalia’s expression showed no mercy. Her face was set.
She was very angry, indeed.

‘When shall I see youF’ I ventured to ask.

**1 don’t know,” said Natalia — and she marched off down
the Kurfiirstendamm as if she never wished to set eyes on
either of us again.

Although we had only a few hundred yards to go, Sally in-
sisted that we must take a taxi. It would never do, she ex-
plained, to arrive at the Eden on foot.

“That girl didn’t like me much, did she?” she remarked,
as we were driving off.

“No, Sally. Not mucii”

162

‘Tm sure I don’t know why. ... I went out of my way
to be nice to her.”

'If that’s what you call being nice ... 1” I laughed, in
spite of my vexation.

"Well, what ought I to have done?”

"It’s more a question of what you ought not to have done.
. , . Haven t you cny small-talk except adultery?”

"People have got to take me as I am,” retorted Sally,
grandly.

"Finger-nails and all?” I’d noticed Natalia’s eyes returning
to them again and again, in fascinated horror.

Sally laughed: "To-day, I specially didn’t paint my toe-
nails.”

"Oh, rot, Sally! Do you really?”

"Yes, of course I do.”

"But what on earth’s the point? I mean, nobody I

corrected myself, "very few people can see them. . .

Sally gave me her most fatuous grin: "I know, darling. . . .
But it makes me feel so marvellously sensual, . .

From this meeting, I date the decline of my relations with
NataHa. Not that there was ever any open quarrel between
us, or definite break. Indeed, we met again only a few days
later; but at once I was aware of a change in the temperature
of our friendship. We talked, as usual, of art, music, books —
carefully avoiding the personal note. We had been walking
about the Tiergarten for the best part of an hour, when
Natalia abruptly asked:

"You like Miss Bowles vairy much?” Her eyes, fixed on
the leaf-strewn path, were smiling maliciously.

"Of course I do. . . . We’re going to be married, soon ”

'Imbecile!”

We marched on for several minutes in silence.

"You know,” said Natalia suddenly, with the air of one
who makes a surprising discovery: *1 do not like your Miss
Bowles?”

163

T know you don’t.”

My tone vexed her — ^as I intended that it should: "What
I think, it is not of importance?”

"Not in the least.” I grinned teasingly.

"Only your Miss Bowles, she is of importance?”

"She is of great importance.”

Natalia reddened and bit her lip. She was getting angry:
“Some day, you will see that I am right.”

"Ive no doubt I shall.”

We walked all the way back to Natalia’s home without
exchanging a single word. On the doorstep, however, she
asked, as usual: “Perhaps you will ring me up, one day . .
then paused, delivered her parting shot: “if your Miss Bowles
permits?”

I laughed: “Whether she permits or not, I shall ring you
up very soon.” Almost before I had finished speaking, Natalia
had shut the door in my face.

Nevertheless, I didn’t keep my word. It was a month before
I finally dialled Nataha’s number. I had half intended to do
so, many times, but, always, my disinclination had been
stronger than my desire to see her again. And when, at
length, we did meet, the temperature had dropped several
degrees lower still; we seemed mere acquaintances. Natalia
was convinced, I suppose, that Sally had become my mistress,
and I didn’t see why I should correct her mistake — doing so
would only have involved a long heart-to-heart talk for
which I simply wasn’t in the mood. And, at the end of all
the explanations, NataHa would probably have found herself
quite as much shocked as she was at present, and a good deal
more jealous. I didn’t flatter myself that Natalia had ever
wanted me as a lover, but she had certainly begun to behave
towards me as a kind of bossy elder sister, and it was just
this role — absurdly enough — ^which Sally had stolen from her.
No, it was a pity, but on the whole, I decided, things were
better as they were. So I played up to Natalia’s indirect
questions and insinuations, and even let drop a few hints of
domestic bliss: “When Sally and I were having breakfast

164

together, this morning . . or “How do you like this tie?
Sally chose it. . . r Poor Natalia received them in glum
silence; and, as so often before, I felt guilty and unkind.
There were two more meetings, equally unsuccessful. Then,
towards the end of February, I rang up her home, and was
told that she'd gone abroad.

Bernhard, too, I hadn’t seen for some time. Indeed, I was
quite surprised to hear his voice on the telephone one morn-
ing. He wanted to know if I would go with him that evening
“into the country” and spend the night. This sounded very
mysterious, and Bernhard only laughed when I tried to get
out of him where we were going and why.

He called for me about eight o’clock, in a big closed car
with a chauffeur. The car, Bernhard explained, belonged to
the business. Both he and his uncle used it. It was typical, I
thought, of the patriarchal simplicity in which the Landauers
lived that Natalia’s parents had no private car of their own,
and that Bernhard even seemed inclined to apologize to me
for the existence of this one. It was a complicated simplicity,
the negation of a negation. Its roots were entangled deep in
the awful guilt of possession. Oh dear, I sighed to myself,
shall I ever get to the bottom of these people, shall I ever
understand them? The mere act of thinking about the
Landauers’ psychic make-up overcame me, as always, with
a sense of absolute, defeated exhaustion.

“You are tired?” Bernhard asked, solicitous, at my elbow.

“Oh no. ...” I roused myself. “Not a bit.”

“You will not mind if we call first at the house of a friend
of mine? There is somebody else coming with us, you s^.
. . . I hope you don’t object?”

“No, of course not,” I said politely.

“He is very quiet. An old friend of the family.” Bernhard,
for some reason, seemed amused. He chuckled faintly to him-
self.

The car stopped outside a villa in the Fasanenstrasse.

165

Bemhard rang the bell and was let in; a few moments later,
he reappeared, carrying in his arms a Skye terrier. I laughed.

“You were exceedingly polite,” said Bernhard, smiling. “All
the same, I think I detected a certain uneasiness on your
part. . . . Am I right?*’

“Perhaps. . . .”

“I wonder whom you were expecting? Some terribly boring
old gentleman, perhaps?” Bernhard patted the terrier. “But
I fear, Christopher, that you are far too well bred ever to
confess that to me now.”

The car slowed down and stopped before the toll-gate of
the Avus motor-road.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “I wish you’d tell me!”

Bernhard smiled his soft expansive Oriental smile; “I’m
very mysterious, am I not?”

“Very.”

“Surely it must be a wonderful experience for you to be
driving away into the night, not knowing whither you are
bound? If I teU you that we are going to Paris, or to Madrid,
or to Moscow, then there will no longer be any mystery and
you will have lost half your pleasure. . . . Do you know,
Christopher, I quite envy you because you do not know
where we are going?”

“That’s one way of looking at it, certainly. . . . But, at any
rate, I know already we aren’t going to Moscow. We’re driv-
ing in the opposite direction.”

Bernhard laughed; “You are so very English sometimes,
Chistopher. Do you realize that, I wonder?”

“You bring out the English side of me, I think,” I answered,
and immediately felt a little uncomfortable, as though this
remark were somehow insulting. Bernhard seemed aware
of my thought

“Am I to imderstand that as a compliment, or as a re-

proofr

“As a compliment, of course.”

The car whirled along the black Avus, into the immense
darkness of the winter countryside. Giant reflector signs

166

glittered for a moment in the headlight beams, expired like
burnt-out matches. Already Berlin was a reddish glow in
the sky behind us, dwindling rapidly beyond a converging
forest of pines. The searchlight on the Funkturm swung its
little ray through the night. The straight black road roared
headlong to meet us, as if to its destruction. In the upholstered
darkness of the car, Bernhard was patting the restless dog
upon his knees.

‘Very well, I will tell you. . . . We are going to a place
on the shores of the Wannsee which used to belong to my
father. What you call in England a country cottage.”

“A cottage? Very nice. . . .”

My tone amused Bernhard. I could hear from his voice
that he was smiling:

“I hope you won’t find it too uncomfortable?”

‘Tm sure I shall love it.”

“It may seem a little primitive, at first. . . Bernhard
laughed quietly to himself: “Nevertheless, it is amusing. . . ”

“It must be. . .

I suppose I had been vaguely expecting an hotel, lights,
music, very good food. I reflected bitterly that only a rich,
decadently over-civihzed town-dweller would describe camp-
ing out for the night in a poky, damp countrj' cottage in the
middle of the winter as “amusing.” And how typical that he
should drive me to that cottage in a luxurious car! Where
would the chauffeur sleep? Probably in the best hotel in Pots-
dam. ... As we passed the lamps of the toll-house at the
far end of the Avus, I saw that Bernhard was still smiling to
himself.

The car swung to the right, downhill, along a road through
silhouetted trees. There was a feeling of nearness to the big
lake lying invisible behind the woodland on our left. I had
hardly realized that the road had ended in a gateway and a
private drive: we pulled up at the door of a large vilh.

“Where’s this?” I asked Bernhard, supposing confusedly
that he must have something else to call for— another terrier,
perhaps* Bernhard laughed gaily:

167

**We have arrived at our destination, my dear Christopher!
Out you get!’*

A manservant in a striped jacket opened the door. The dog
jumped out, and Bernhard and I followed. Resting his hand
upon my shoulder, he steered me across the hall and up the
stairs. I was aware of a rich carpet and framed engravings.
He opened the door of a luxurious pink and white bedroom,
with a luscious quilted silk eiderdown on the bed. Beyond
was a bathroom, gleaming with polished silver, and hung
with fleecy white towels.

Bernhard grinned:

"Poor Christopher! I fear you are disappointed in our
cottage? It is too large for you, too ostentatious? You were
looking forward to the pleasure of sleeping on the floor —
amidst the blackbeetles?”

The atmosphere of this joke surrounded us through din-
ner. As the manservant brought in each new course on its
silver dish, Bernhard would catch my eye and smile a
deprecatory smile. The dining-room was tame baroque,
elegant and rather colourless. I asked him when the villa had
been built.

"My father built this house in 1904. He wanted to make
it as much as possible like an English home — for my mother’s
sake. . . .”

After dinner, we walked down the windy garden, in the
darkness. A strong wind was blowing up through the trees,
from over the water. I followed Bernhard, stumbling against
the body of the terrier which kept running between my legs,
down flights of stone steps to a landing-stage. The dark lake
was full of waves, and beyond, in the direction of Potsdam,
a sprinkle of bobbing hghts were comet-tailed in the black
water. On the parapet, a dismantled gas-bracket rattled in the
wind, and, below us, the waves splashed uncannily soft and
wet, against unseen stone.

"When I was a boy, I used to come down these steps in
the winter evenings and stand for hours here. , * Bern-

168

hard had begun to speak. His voice was pitched so low that
I could hardly hear it; his face was turned away from me,
in the darkness, looking out over the lake. When a stronger
pu£E of wind blew, his words came more distinctly — as though
the wind itself were talking: “That was during the War-time.
My elder brother had been killed, right at the beginning of
the War , . Later, certain business rivals of my father be-

gan to make propaganda against him, because his wife was
an English woman, so that nobody would come to visit us,
and it was rumoured that we were spies. At last, even the
local tradespeople did not wish to call at the house. . . .
It was all rather ridiculous, and at the same time rather ter-
rible, that human beings could be possessed by so much
malice. . .

I shivered a little, peering out over the water. It was cold.
Bernhard s soft, careful voice continued in my ear:

“1 used to stand here on those winter evenings and pre-
tend to myself that I was the last human being left alive
in the world. ... I was a queer sort of boy, I suppose. . . .
I never got on well with other boys, although I wished very
much to be popular and to have friends. Perhaps that was
my mistake — I was too eager to be friendly. The boys saw
this and it made them cruel to me. Objectively, I can under-
stand that . . . possibly I might even have been capable of
cruelty myself, had circumstances been otherwise. It is dif-
ficult to say. . . . But, being what I was, school was a kind
of Chinese torture. ... So you can understand that I liked
to come down here at night to tlie lake, and be alone. And
then there was the War. ... At this time, I believed that the
War would go on foi ten, or fifteen, or even twenty years. I
knew that i myself should soon be called up. Curiously
enough, I don't remember that I felt at all afraid. I accepted
it It seemed quite natural that we should all have to me. I
suppose that this was the general wartime mentality. But I
thMk that, in my case, there was also something character-
istically Semitic in my attitude. ... It is very difficult to

169

speak quite impartially of these things. Sometimes one is
unwilling to make certain admissions to oneself, because
they are displeasing to one’s self-esteem, . .

We turned slowly and began to climb the slope of the
garden from the lake. Now and then, I heard the panting of
die terrier, out hunting in the dark. Bernhard s voice went on,
hesitating, choosing its words:

“After my brother had been killed, my mother scarcely
ever left this house and its grounds. I think she tried to for-
get that such a land as Germany existed. She began to study
Hebrew and to concentrate her whole mind upon ancient
Jewish history and literature. I suppose that this is really
symptomatic of a modem phase of Jewish development — ^this
turning away from European culture and European tradi-
tions. I am aware of it, sometimes, in myself. ... I remem-
ber my mother going about the house like a person walking
in sleep. She gmdged every moment which she did not spend
at her studies, and this was rather terrible because, all the
while, she was dying of cancer. ... As soon as she knew
what was the matter with her, she refused to see a doctor.
She feared an operation. ... At last, when the pain be-
came very bad, she killed herself. . .

We had reached the house. Bernhard opened a glass door,
and we passed through a little conservatory into a big
drawing-room full of jumping shadows from the fire burning
in an open English fireplace. Bernhard switched on a num-
ber of lamps, making the room quite dazzlingly bright.

*"Need we have so much illumination?” I asked. ‘1 think
the firelight is much nicer.”

“Do you?” Bernhard smiled subtly. “So do I, . . . But I
thought, somehow, that you would prefer the lamps.”

“\^y on earth should I?” I mistrusted his tone at once.

“I don’t know. It’s merely part of my conception of your
character. How very foolish I am!”

Bernhard’s voice was mocking. I made no reply. He got up
and turned out all but one small lamp on a table at my side.
There was a long silence.

170

“Would you care to listen to the wireless?^

This time his tone made me smile: “You don*t have to
entertain me, you know! Im perfectly happy just sitting
here by the fire.’'

“If you are happy, then I am glad. ... It was foolish of
me — I had formed the opposite impression.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was afraid, perhaps, that you were feeling bored.”

“Of course not! What nonsense!”

"TTou are very polite, Christopher. You are always very
polite. But I can read quite clearly w^hat you are think-
ing. ...” I had never heard Bernhards voice sound like
this, before; it was really hostile: ^Tou are wondering why I
brought you to this house. Above all, you are wondering why
I told you what I told you just now,”

“I’m glad you told me. . .

“No, Christopher. That is not true. You are a little shocked.
One does not speak of such things, you think. It disgusts your
English public-school training, a little — ^this Jewish emo-
tionalism. You like to flatter yourself that you are a man of
the world and that no form of weakness disgusts you, but
your training is too strong for you. People ought not to talk
to each other like this, you feel. It is not good form.’'

“Bernhard, you’re being fantastic!”

“Am I? Perhaps. . . . But I do not think so. Never mind.
. . . Since you wish to know, I will try to explain to you why
I brought you here, ... I wished to make an experiment”

“An experiment? Upon me, you mean?”

“No, Aol experiment upon myself. That is to say. . » .
For ten years, I have never spoken intimately, as I have
spoken to you to-night, to any human soul. ... I wonder
if you can put yourself in my place, imagine what that
means? And this evening. . . . Perhaps, after all, it is im-
possible to explain. ... Let me put it in another way. I
bring you down here, to this house, which has no associatioas
for you. You have no reason to feel oppressed by the pash
Then I tell you my story. ... It is possible that, in this way,

171

one can lay ghosts. ... I express myself very badly. Does it
sound very absurd as I say itf*

“No. Not in the least. . . . But why did you choose me
for your experiment?”

“Your voice was very hard as you said that, Christopher,
You are thinking that you despise me.”

“No, Bernhard. I’m thinking that you must despise me,
... I often wonder why you have anything to do with me
at all. I feel sometimes that you actually dislike me, and that
you say and do things to show it — and yet, in a way, I suppose
you don’t, or you wouldn’t keep asking me to come and see
you. ... All the same. I’m getting rattier tired of what you
call your experiments. To-night wasn’t the first of them, by
any means. The experiments fail, and then you’re angry with
me. I must say, I think that’s very unjust. . . . But what I
can’t stand is that you show your resentment by adopting
this mock-humble attitude. . . . Actually, you’re the least
humble person I’ve ever met.”

Bernhard was silent. He had lit a cigarette, and now ex-
pelled the smoke slowly through his nostrils. At last he said:

“I wonder if you are right ... I think not altogether.
But partly. . . . Yes, there is some quality in you which at-
tracts me and which I very much envy, and yet this very

a uality of yours also arouses my antagonism. . . . Perhaps
lat is merely because I also am partly English, and you
represent to me an aspect of my own character. . . . No,
that is not true, either. ... It is not so simple as I would
wish. . . . I’m afraid,” Bernhard passed his hand, with a
wearily humorous gesture, over his forehead and eyes, “that
I am a quite unnecessarily complicated piece of mechanism.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then he added:

“But this is all stupid egotistical talk. You must forgive
me. I have no right to speak to you in this way.”

He rose to his feet, went softly across the room, and
switched on the wireless. In rising,^ he had rested his hand
for an instant on my shoulder. Followed by the first strains
of the music, he came back to his chair before the fire, smiling.

172

His smile was soft, and yet curiously hostile. It had the
hostility of something ancient. I thought of one of the Ori-
ental statuettes in his fiat.

‘"This evening,” he smiled softly, “they are relaying the
last act of Die MeistersingerJ"

“Very interesting,” I said.

Half an hour later, Bernhard took me up to my bedroom
door, his hand upon my shoulder, still smiling. Next morning,
at breakfast, he looked tired, but was gay and amusing. He
did not in any way refer to our conversation of the evening
before.

We drove back to Berlin, and he dropped me on the comer
of the NoUendorfplatz.

“Ring me up soon,” I said.

“Of course. Early next week.”

“And thank you very much.”

“Thank you for coming, my dear Christopher.”

I didn t see him again for nearly six months.

One Sunday, early in August, a referendum was held to
decide the fate of the Briining government. 1 was back at
Frl. Schroeders, lying in bed through the beautiful hot
weather, cursing my toe: I had cut it on a piece of tin, bathing
for the last time at Riigen, and now it had suddenly festered
and was full of poison, I was quite delighted when Bernhard
unexpectedly rang me up.

“You remember a certain little country cottage on the
shores of the Wannsee? You do? I was wondering if you
would care to spend a few hours there, this afternoon, . . .
Yes, your landlady has told me already about your misfor-
tune. I am so sorry. ... I can send the car for you. I think
it will be good to escape for a little from this city? You can
do whatever you like there — ^just lie quiet and rest. Nobody
will interfere with your liberty.”

173

Soon after lunch, the car duly arrived to pick me up. It was
a glorious afternoon, and, during the drive, I blessed Bern-
hard for his kindness. But, when we arrived at the villa, I
got a nasty shock: the lawn was crowded with people.

I was really annoyed. It was a dirty trick, I thought. Here
was I, in my oldest clothes, with a bandaged foot and a stick,
lured into the middle of a slap-up garden-party! And here
was Bernhard in flannel trousers and a boyish jumper. It
was astonishing how young he looked. Bounding to meet
me, he vaulted over the low railing:

‘'Christopher! Here you are at last! Make yourseM com-
fortable!”

In spite of my protests, he forcibly removed my coat and
hat. As ill-luck would have it, I was wearing braces. Most
of the other guests were in smart Riviera flannels. Smiling
sourly, adopting instinctively the armour of sulky eccentricity
which protects me on such occasions, I advanced hobbling
into their midst. Several couples were dancing to a portable
gramophone; two young men were pillow-fighting with
cushions, cheered on by tfieir respective women; most of the
party were lying chatting on rugs on the grass. It was all so
very informal, and the footmen and the chauffeurs stood
discreetly aside, watching their antics, like the nursemaids of
titled children.

What were they doing here? Why had Bernhard asked
them? Was this another and more elaborate attempt to exor-
cize his ghosts? No, I decided; it was more probably only a
duty-party, given once a year, to all the relatives, friends and
dependents of the family. And mine was just another name to
be ticked off, far down the list. Well, it was silly to be un-
gracious. I was here. I would enjoy myself.

Then, to my great surprise, I saw Natalia. She was dressed
in some light yellow material, with small puffed sleeves,
and carried a big straw hat in her hand. She looked so pretty
that I should hardly have recognized her. She advanced
gaily to welcome me:

“Ah, Christopher! You know, I am so pleased!”

174

‘*Where have you been, all this time?"

‘In Paris. . . . You did not know? Truthfully? I await al-
ways a letter from you — and there is nothing!"

“But, Natalia, you never sent me your address."

“Oh, I didr

“Well, in that case, I never got the letter, . . . Ive been
away, too, you know."

“So? You have been away? Then Tm sorry, ... I cant
help you!"

We both laughed. Natalia's laugh had changed, like every-
thing else about her. It was no longer the laugh of the severe
schoolgirl who had ordered me to read Jacobsen and Goethe.
And there was a dreamy, delighted smile upon her face — as
though, I thought, she were listening, all the time, to lively,
pleasant music. Despite her obvious pleasure at seeing me
again, she seemed hardly to be attending to our conversation.

“And what are you doing in Paris? Are you studying art,
as you wanted to?"

“But of course!"

“Do you like it?"

“Wonderful!" Natalia nodded vigorously. Her eyes were
sparkling. But the word seemed intended to describe some-
thing else.

“Is your mother with you?"

“Yes. Yes. . .

“Have you got a flat together?"

“Yes. . . " Again she nodded. ‘‘A flat ... Oh, its won-
derful!"

“And you go back there, soon?"

“Why, yes. . . . Of course! To-morrow!" She seemed quite
surprised that I should ask the question — surprised that the
whole world didn't know. . . . How well I knew that feel-
ing! I was certain, now: Natalia was in love.

We talked for several minutes more — ^Natalia always
smiling, always dreamily listening, but not to me. Then, ^
at once, she was in a hurry. She was late, she said. She'd
got to pack. She must go at once. She squeezed my hand, and

175

I watched her run gaily across the lawn to a waiting car. Sh<
had forgotten, even, to ask me to write, or to give me he;
address. As I waved good-bye to her, my poisoned toe gav<
a sharp twinge of envy.

Later, the younger members of the party bathed, splashing
about in the dirty lake-water at the foot of the stone stairs
Bernhard bathed, too. He had a white, strangely innocen
body, like a baby’s, with a baby’s round, slightly protruding
stomach. He laughed and splashed and shouted louder thai
anybody. When he caught my eye, he made more noise thai
ever — was it, I imagined, with a certain defiance? Was h<
thinking, as I was, of what he had told me, standing in thi;
very place, six months ago? “Come in, too, Christopher!” h<
shouted. “Itll do your foot good!” When, at last, they hac
all come out of the water and were diying themselves, hi
and a few other young men chased each other, laughing
among the garden trees.

Yet, in spite of all Bernhard’s frisking, the party didn’
really "‘go.” It split up into groups and cliques; and, evei
when the fun was at its height, at least a quarter of the guest
were talking politics in low, serious voices. Indeed, some o
them had so obviously come to Bernhard’s house merely t(
meet each other and to discuss their own private affairs tha
they scarcely troubled to pretend to take part in the so
ciabilities. They might as well have been sitting in thei
own offices, or at home.

When it got dark, a girl began to sing. She sang in Russian
and, as always, it sounded sad. The footmen brought ou
glasses and a huge bowl of claret-cup. It was getting chill;
on the lawn. There were millions of stars. Out on the grea
calm brimming lake, the last ghost-like sails were tackin|
hither and thither with the faint uncertain night-breeze. Th
gramophone played, I lay back on the cushions, listening to i
Jewish surgeon who argued that France cannot understan<
Germany because the French have experienced nothini
comparable to the neurotic post-War life of the Germai
people. A girl laughed suddenly, shrilly, from the middle of i
l^oup of young men. Over there, in me city, the votes wer

176

being counted. I thought, of Natalia: She has escaped — none
too soon, perhaps. However often the decision may be de-
layed, all these people are ultimately doomed. This evening
is the dress-rehearsal of a disaster. It is like the last night of
an epoch.

At half -past ten, the party began to break up. We all stood
about in the hall or around the front door while someone
telephoned through to Berlin to get the news. A few mo-
ments’ hushed waiting, and the dark listening face at the
telephone relaxed into a smile. The Government was safe, he
told us. Several of the guests cheered, semi-ironical but re-
lieved. I turned to find Bernhard at my elbow: ‘‘Once again.
Capitalism is saved/’ He was subtly smiling.

He had arranged that I should be taken home in the dicky
of a Berlin-bound car. As we came down the Tauentzien-
strasse, they were selling papers with the news of the shoot-
ing on the Biilowplatz. I thought of our party lying out there
on the lawn by die lake, drinking our claret-cup while the
gramophone played; and of that police-oflScer, revolver in
hand, stumbling mortally wounded up the cinema steps to
fall dead at the feet or a cardboard figure advertising a
comic film.

Another pause — eight months, this time. And here I was,
ringing the bell of Bernhard’s flat. Yes, he was in.

“This is a great honour, Christopher. And, unfortunately,
a very rare one.”

“Yes, Tm sorry. I’ve so often meant to come and see you.
... I don’t know why I haven’t . .

“You’ve been in Berlin all this time? You know, I rang up
twice at Frl. Schroeder’s, and a strange voice answered and
said that you’d gone away, to England.”

“I told Frl Schroeder that. I didn’t want her to know that
I was still here.”

“Oh, indeed? You had a quarrel?”

“On the contrary. I told her that I was going to England,
because, otherwise, she’d have insisted on supporting me. I

177

got a bit bard up. . . . Jiverytning s penectiy an ngnt again,
now,” I added hastily, seeing a look of concern on Bernhard s
face.

“Quite certain? I am very glad. . . , But what have you
been doing with yourself, all this time?”

“Living with a family of Eve in a two-room attic in Hal-
lesches Tor.”

Bernhard smiled: “By Jove, Christopher — ^what a romantic
life you lead!”

“Tm glad you call that kind of thing romantic. I don't!”

We both laughed.

“At any rate,” Bernhard said, “it seems to have agreed
with you. You're looking the picture of health.”

I couldn't return the compliment. I thought I had never
seen Bernhard looking so ill. His face was pale and drawn;
the weariness did not lift from it even when he smiled. There
were deep sallow half-moons under his eyes. His hair seemed
thinner. He might have added ten years to his age.

“And how have you been getting on?” I asked.

“My existence, in comparison with yours, is sadly hum-
drum, I fear. . . . Nevertheless, there are certain tragi-
comic diversions.”

“What sort of diversions?”

“This, for example ” Bernhard went over to his writing-

desk, picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to me: “It
arrived by post this morning.”

I read the typed words:

Bernhard Landauer, beware. We are going to settle

the score with you and your uncle and all other filthy

Jews. We give you twenty-four hours to leave Germany.

If not, you are dead men.

Bernhard laughed: “Bloodthirsty, isn't it?”

“It's incredible. . . . Who do you suppose sent it?”

“An employee who has been dismissed, perhaps. Or a
practical joker. Or a madman. Or a hot-headed Nazi school-

"‘What shall you do?^

"Nothing/^

“Surely you 11 tell the police?”

“My dear Christopher, the police would very soon get tired
of hearing such nonsense. We receive three or four such
letters every week.”

“All the same, this one may quite well be in earnest. . . .
The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but theyVe capable of
anything. That’s just why they’re so dangerous. People laugh
at them, right up to the last moment. . . .”

Bernhard smiled his tired smile: “I appreciate very much
this anxiety of yours on my behalf. Nevertheless, I am quite
unworthy of it. . . . My existence is not of such vital im-
portance to myself or to others that the forces of the Law
should be called upon to protect me. ... As for my uncle
he is at present in Warsaw. . .

I saw that he wished to change the subject:

“Have you any news of Natalia and Frau Landauer?”

“Oh yes, indeed! Natalia is married. Didn’t you know? To
a young French doctor. ... I hear that daey are very
happy.”

“I’m so glad!”

“Yes. . . . It’s pleasant to think of one’s friends being
happy, isn’t it?” Bernhard crossed to the waste-paper basket
and dropped the letter into it: “Especially in another coun-
try. . . . ’ He smiled, gently and sadly.

“And what do you think will happen in Germany, now?” I
asked. “Is there going to be a Nazi putsch or a communist
revolution?”

Bernhard laughed: “You have lost none of your enthusiasm,
I see! I only wish that this question seemed as momentous to
me as it does to you. ...”

“It’ll seem momentous enough, one of these fine mornings”
— ^the retort rose to my lips: I am glad now that I didn’t utter
it. Instead, I asked: “Why do you wish that?”

“Because it would be a sign of something healthier in my
own character. ... It is right, nowadays, that one should

179

be interested in such things; I recognize that. It is sane. It
is healthy. . . . And because all this seems to me a little un-
real, a little — ^please don’t be offended, Christopher — trivial,
I know that I am getting out of touch with existence. That is
bad, of course. . . . One must preserve a sense of proportion.
... Do you know, there are times when I sit here alone in
the evenings, amongst these books and stone figures, and
there comes to me such a strange sensation of unreality, as
if this were my whole life? Yes, actually, sometimes, I have
felt a doubt as to whether our firm — that great building
packed from floor to roof with all our accumulation of prop-
erty — areally exists at all, except in my imagination. . . .
And then I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has
in a dream, that I myself do not exist. It is very morbid, very
unbalanced, no doubt. ... I will make a confession to you,
Christopher. . , . One evening, I was so much troubled by
this hallucination of the non-existence of Landauers’ that I
picked up my telephone and had a long conversation with
one of the night-watchmen, making some stupid excuse for
having troubled him. Just to reassure myseff, you under-
stand? Don’t you think I must be becoming insane?”

“I don’t think anything of the kind. ... It could have
happened to anyone who has overworked.”

“You recommend a holiday? A month in Italy, just as the
spring is beginning? Yes. ... I remember the days when a
month of Italian sunshine would have solved all my troubles.
But now, alas, that drug has lost its power. Here is a paradox
for you! Landauers’ is no longer real to me, yet I am more
than ever its slave! You see the penalty of a life of sordid
materialism. Take my nose away from the grindstone, and
I become positively unhappy, . . . Ah, Christopher, be
warned by my fate!”

He smiled, spoke lightly, half banteringly. I didn’t like to
pursue the subject further.

“You know,” I said, “I really am going to England, now. I’m
leaving in three or four days.”

“I am sorry to hear it. How long do you expect to stay
therer

180

‘‘Probably the whole summer.’^

“You are tired of Berlin, at last?”

“Oh no. ... I feel more as if Berlin had got tired of me.”

“Then you will come back?”

“Yes, I expect so.”

“I believe that you will always come back to Berlin, Chris-
topher. You seem to belong here,”

“Perhaps I do, in a way.”

“It is strange how people seem to belong to places —
especially to places where they were not born. . . . When
I first went to China, it seemed to me that I was at home
there, for the first time in my life. . • . Perhaps, when I die,
my spirit will be wafted to Peking.”

“It’d be better if you let a train waft your body there, as
soon as possible!”

Bernhard laughed: “Very well. . • . I will follow your
advice! But on two conditions — ^first, that you come with me;
second, that we leave Berlin this evening.”

‘Tou mean it?”

“Certainly I do.”

“What a pity! I should like to have come. . . . Unfor-
tunately, I’ve only a hundred and fifty marks in the world.”

“Naturally, you would be my guest.”

“Oh, Beri^ard, how marvellous! We’d stop a few days in
Warsaw, to get the visas. Then on to Moscow, and take the
trans-Siberian. . . .”

“So you’ll come?”

“Of course!”

“This evening?”

I pretended to consider: “I’m afraid I can’t, this evening.
... I’d have to get my washing back from the laundry,
first. . . . What about to-morrow?”

“To-morrow is too late.”

“What a pity!”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

We both laughed. Bernhard seemed to be specially tickled
by his joke. There was even something a little exaggerated in
his laughter, as though the situation had some further dimen-

181

sion of humour to which I hadn t penetrated. We were still
laughing when I said good-bye.

Perhaps I am slow at jokes. At any rate, it took me nearly
eighteen months to see the point of this one — ^to recognize it
as Bernhard's last, most daring and most cynical experiment
upon us both. For now I am certain — absolutely convinced
— ^that his offer was perfectly serious.

When I returned to Berlin, in the autumn of 1932, 1 duly
rang Bernhard up, only to be told that he was away, on busi-
ness, in Hamburg. I blame myself now — one always does
blame oneself afterwards — ^for not having been more per-
sistent. But there was so much for me to do, so many pupils,
so many other people to see; the weeks turned into months;
Christmas came — I sent Bernhard a card but got no answer;
he was away again, most likely; and then the New Year
began.

Hitler came, and the Reichstag fire, and the mock-elections.
I wondered what was happening to Bernhard. Three times I
rang him up— from call-boxes, lest I should get Frl. Schroeder
into trouble; there was never any reply. Then, one evening
early in April, I went round to his house. The caretaker put
his head out of the tiny window, more suspicious than ever;
at first, he seemed even inclined to deny that he knew Bern-
hard at all. Then he snapped; "Herr Landauer has gone
away . . . gone right away.”

“Do you mean he s moved from here?” I asked. “Can you
give me his address?”

“He^s gone away,” the caretaker repeated, and slammed
the window shut,

I left it at that — concluding, not unnaturally, that Bern-
hard was somewhere safe abroad.

On the morning of the Jewish boycott, I walked round to
take a look at Landauers\ Things seemed very much as usual,

182

superficially. Two or three uniformed S.A. boys were posted
at each of the big entrances. Whenever a shopper ap-
proached, one of them would say: “Remember this is a
Jewish business!” The boys were quite polite, grinning, mak-
ing jokes among themselves. Little knots of passers-by col-
lected to watch the performance — interested, amused or
merely apathetic; still uncertain whether or not to approve.
There was nothing of the atmosphere one read of later in
the smaller provincial towns, where purchasers were forcibly
disgraced with a rubber ink-stamp on the forehead and
cheek. Quite a lot of people went into the building. I went
in myself, bought the first thing I saw — ^it happened to be a
nutmeg-grater — and strolled out again, twirling my small
parcel. One of the boys at the door winked and said some-
thing to his companion. I remembered having seen him once
or twice at the Alexander Casino, in the days when I was
living with the Nowaks.

In May, I left Berlin for the last time. My first stop was
at Prague — and it was there, sitting one evening alone, in
a cellar restaurant, that I heard, indirectly, my last news of
the Landauer family.

Two men were at the next table, talking German. One of
them was certainly an Austrian; the other I couldn t place
— ^he was fat and sleek, about forty-five, and might well have
owned a small business in any European capital, from Bel-
grade to Stockholm. Both of them were undoubtedly prosper-
ous, technically Aryan, and politically neuter. The fat man
startled me into attention by saying:

“You know Landauers’? Landauers' of Berlin?”

The Austrian nodded: “Sure, I do. . . . Did a lot of busi-
ness with them, one time. . . . Nice place they’ve got there.
Must have cost a bit . . .”

“Seen the papers, this morning?”

“No. Didn’t have time. . . . Moving into our new flat,
you know. The wife’s coming back.”

183

“She’s coming back? You don’t say! Been in Vienna, hasn’t
she?”

“That’s right.”

“Had a good time?”

“Trust her! It cost enough, anyway.”

“Vienna’s pretty dear, these days.”

“It is that.”

“Food’s dear.”

“It’s dear everywhere.”

“I guess you’re right.” The fat man began to pick his teeth:
"What was I saying?”

“You were saying about Landauers’.”

“So I was. . . . You didn’t read the papers, this morn-
ing?”

"No, I didn’t read them,”

“There was a bit in about Bernhard Landauer.”

“Bernhard?” said the Austrian. “Let’s see — he’s the son,
isn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t know. . . ” The fat man dislodged a tiny
fragment of meat with the point of his toothpick. Holding it
up to the light, he regarded it thoughtfully.

“I think he’s the son,” said the Austrian. “Or maybe the
nephew. . . . No, I think he’s the son.”

“Whoever he is,” the fat man flicked the scrap of meat on
to his plate witli a gesture of distaste: “He’s dead,”

“You don’t say!”

“Heart failure.” The fat man frowned, and raised his hand
to cover a belch. He was wearing three gold rings; “That’s
what the newspapers said,”

“Heart failurel” The Austrian shifted uneasily in his chair;
“You don’t sayl”

“There’s a lot of heart failure,” said the fat man, “in Ger-
many these days.”

The Austrian nodded: ‘Tou can’t believe all you hear.
That’s a fact.”

“If vou ask me ” said the fat man, “anyone’s heart’s liable to
fail, if it gets a bullet inside it”

184

The Austrian looked very uncomfortable: ‘‘Those
Nazis . . he began.

“They mean business.” The fat man seemed rather to enjoy
making his friend's flesh creep. “You mark my words: they're
going to clear the Jews right out of Germany. Right out.”

The Austrian shook his head: “I don't like it.”

“Concentration camps,” said the fat man, lighting a cigar.
“They get them in there, make them sign things. . . . Then
their hearts fail.”

“I don't like it,” said the Austrian. “It's bad for trade.”

“Yes,” the fat man agreed. “It's bad for trade.”

“Makes everything so uncertain.”

“That's right. Never know who you're doing business
with.” The fat man laughed. In his own way, he was rather
macabre: “It might be a corpse.”

The Austrian shivered a little: “What about the old man,
old Landauer? Did they get him, too?”

“No, he's all right. Too smart for them. He's in Paris.”

“You don't say!”

“I reckon the Nazis'!! take over the business. They're doing
that, now.”

“Then old Landauer'll be ruined, I guess?”

“Not him!” The fat man flicked the ash from his cigar,
contemptuously. “He’ll have a bit put by, somewhere. You'll
see. He'll start something else. They're smart, those
Jews. . . .”

“That’s right,” the Austrian agreed. “You can't keep a
Jew down.”

The thought seemed to cheer him, a little. He brightened:
“That reminds me! I knew there was something I wanted
to tell you. . . . Did you ever hear the story about the Jew
and the Goy girl with the wooden leg?”

“No.” The fat man puffed at his cigar. His digestion was
working well, now. He was in the right after-dinner mood:
“Go ahead. . •

185

A BERLIN DIARY
(Winter 1932-3)

To-night, for the first time this winter, it is very cold. The
dead cold grips the town in utter silence, like the silence of
intense midday summer heat. In the cold the town seems
actually to contract, to dwindle to a small black dot, scarcely
larger than hundreds of other dots, isolated and hard to find,
on the enormous European map. Outside, in the night, be-
yond the last new-built blocks of concrete flats, where the
streets end in frozen allotment gardens, are the Prussian
plains. You can feel them all round you, to-night, creeping in
upon the city, like an immense waste of unhomely ocean —
sprinkled with leafless copses and ice-lakes and tiny villages
which are remembered only as the outlandish names of
battlefields in half-forgotten wars. Berlin is a skeleton which
aches in the cold: it is my own skeleton aching. I feel in my
bones the sharp ache of the frost in the girders of the over-
head railway, in the ironwork of balconies, in bridges, tram-
lines, lamp-standards, latrines. The iron throbs and shrinks,
the stone and the bricks ache dully, the plaster is numb.

Berlin is a city with two centres — ^the cluster of expensive
hotels, bars, cinemas, shops round the Memorial Church, a
sparkling nucleus of light, like a sham diamond, in the
shabby twilight of the town; and the self-conscious civic
centre of buildings round the Unter den Linden, carefully
arranged. In grand international styles, copies of copies, they
assert our dignity as a capital city — a. parliament, a couple of
museuins, a State bank, a cathedral, an opera, a dozen em-
bassies, a triumphal arch; nothing has been forgotten. And
they are all so pompous, so very correct — ^all except the ca-

186

thedral, which betrays, in its architecture, a flash of that
hysteria which flickers always behind every grave, grey
Prussian fagade. Extinguished by its absurd dome, it is, at
first sight, so startlingly funny that one searches for a name
suitably preposterous — the Church of the Immaculate Con-
sumption.

But tlie real heart of Berlin is a small damp black wood —
the Tiergarten. At this time of the year, the cold begins to
drive the peasant boys out of their tiny unprotected villages
into the city, to look for food, and work. But the city, which
glowed so brightly and invitingly in the night sky above the
plains, is cold and cruel and dead. Its warmth is an illusion,
a mirage of the winter desert. It will not receive these boys. It
has nothing to give. The cold drives them out of its streets,
into the wood which is its cruel heart. And there they cower
on benches, to starve and freeze, and dream of their far-
away cottage stoves.

Frl. Schroeder hates the cold. Huddled in her fur-lined
velvet jacket, she sits in the corner with her stockinged feet
on the stove. Sometimes she smokes a cigarette, sometimes she
sips a glass of tea, but mostly she just sits, staring dully at the
stove tiles in a kind of hibernation-doze. She is lonely, nowa-
days. Frl. Mayr is away in Holland, on a cabaret-tour. So
Frl. Schroeder has nobody to talk to, except Bobby and
myself.

Bobby, anyhow, is in deep disgrace. Not only is he out of
work and three months behind with the rent, but Frl.
Schroeder has reason to suspect him of stealing money from
her bag. “You know, Herr Issyvoo,” she tells me, “I shouldn’t
wonder at all if he didn’t pinch those fifty marks from Frl.
Kost. . . . He’s quite capable of it, the pig! To think I could
ever have been so mistaken in him! Will you believe it, Herr
Issyvoo, I treated him as if he were my own son — ^and this is
the thanks I get! He says he’ll pay me every pfennig if he
gets this job as barman at the Lady Windermere ... if ,

187

if , . " Frl. Schroeder sniEs with intense scorn:; “I dare
say! If my giandmother had wheels, she’d be an omnibus!”

Bobby has been turned out of his old room and banished
to the ‘"Swedish Pavilion.” It must be terribly draughty, up
there. Sometimes poor Bobby looks quite blue with cold. He
has changed very much during the last year — ^his hair is
thinner, his clotlies are shabbier, his cheekiness has become
defiant and rather pathetic. People like Bobby are their jobs
— take the job away and they partially cease to exist. Some-
times, he sneaks into the living-room, unshaven, his hands
in his pockets, and lounges about uneasily defiant, whistling
to himself — ^the dance tunes he whistles are no longer quite
new. Frl. Schroeder throws him a word, now and lien, like a
grudging scrap of bread, but she won’t look at him or make
room for him by the stove. Perhaps she has never really for-
given him for his affair with Frl. Kost. The tickling and
bottom-slapping days are over.

Yesterday we had a visit from Frl. Kost herself. I was out at
the time: when I got back I found Frl. Schroeder quite ex-
cited. “Only thinl^ Herr Issyvoo — ^I wouldn’t have known
her! She’s quite the lady now! Her Japanese friend has bought
her a fur coat — real mr, I shouldn’t like to think what he
must have paid for it! And her shoes — genuine snakesldn!
Well, well, I bet she earned them! That’s the one kind of
business that still goes well, nowadays. ... I think I shall
have to take to the line myself!” But however much Frl.
Schroeder might affect sarcasm at FrL Kost’s expense, I
could see that she’ d been greatly and not unfavourably im-
pressed. And it wasn’t so much the fur coat or the shoes
which had impressed her: Frl. Kost had achieved something
higher — ^the hall-mark of respectability in Frl. Schroeder’s
world — ^she had had an operation in a private nursing home.
“Oh, not what you think, Herr Issyvoo! It was sometiiing to
do with her throat. Her friend paid for that, too, of course.
. * , Only imagine — ^the doctors cut something out of the

188

back of her nose; and now she can fill her mouth with water
and squirt it out through her nostrils, just like a syringe! I
wouldn’t believe it at first — ^but she did it to show me! My
word of honour, Herr Issyvoo, she could squirt it right across
the kitchen! There’s no denying, she’s very much improved,
since the time when she used to live here. ... I shouldn’t
be surprised if she married a bank director one of these days.
Oh, yes, you mark my words, that girl will go far. • .

Herr Krampf, a young engineer, one of my pupils, describes
his childhood during the days of the War and the Inflation.
During the last years of the War, the straps disappeared
from the windows of railway carriages: people had cut them
off in order to sell the leather. You even saw men and women
going about in clothes made from the carriage upholstery, A
party of Krampf s school friends broke into a factory one
night and stole all the leather driving-belts. Everybody stole.
Everybody sold what they had to sell — ^themselves included.
A boy of fourteen, from Krampf s class, peddled cocaine be-
tween school hours, in the streets.

Farmers and butchers were omnipotent. Their slightest
whim had to be gratified, if you wanted vegetables or meat.
The Krampf family knew of a butcher in a little village out-
side Berlin who always had meat to sell. But the butcher had
a peculiar sexual perversion. His greatest erotic pleasure was
to pinch and slap the cheeks of a sensitive, weU-bred girl or
woman. The possibility of thus humiliating a lady like Frau
Krampf excited him enormously: unless he was allowed to
realize his fantasy, he refused, absolutely, to do business. So,
every Sunday, Krampf s mother would travel out to the vil-
lage with her children, and patiently offer her cheeks to be
slapped and pinched, in exchange for some cutlets or a steak.

At the far end of the Potsdamerstrasse, there is a fair-
ground, with merry-go-roimds, swings and peep-shows. One

189

of the chief attractions of the fair-ground is a tent where
boxing and wrestling matches are held. You pay your money
and go in, the wrestlers fight three or four rounds, and the
referee then announces that, if you want to see any more, you
must pay an extra ten pfennigs. One of the wrestlers is a
bald man with a very large stomach: he wears a pair of can-
vas trousers rolled up at the bottoms, as though he were go-
ing paddling. His opponent wears black tights, and leather
kneelets which look as if they had come off an old cab-horse.
The wrestlers throw each other about as much as possible,
turning somersaults in the air to amuse the audience. The fat
man who plays the part of loser pretends to get very angry
when he is beaten, and threatens to fight the referee.

One of the boxers is a negro. He invariably wins. The
boxers hit each other with the open glove, making a tre-
mendous amount of noise. The other boxer, a tall, well-built
young man, about twenty years younger and obviously much
stronger than the negro, is “knocked out” with absurd ease.
He writhes in great agony on the floor, nearly manages to
struggle to his feet at 3ie count of ten, then collapses again,
groaning. After this fight, the referee collects ten more pfen-
nigs and calls for a challenger from the audience. Before any
bona fide challenger can apply, another young man, who has
been quite openly chatting and joking with the wrestlers,
jumps hastily into the ring and strips off his clothes, revealing
himself already dressed in shorts and boxer s boots. The
referee announces a purse of five marks; and, this time, the
negro is "Toiocked out.”

The audience took the fights dead seriously, shouting en-
couragement to the fighters, and even quarrelling and betting
amongst themselves on the results. Yet nearly all of them
had been in the tent as long as I had, and stayed on after I
had left The political moral is certainly depressing: these
people could be made to believe in anybody or anySiing.

Walking this evening along the Kleiststrasse, I saw a htfle
crowd ga^ered round a private car. In the car were two girls:

190

on the pavement stood two young Jews, engaged in a violent
argument with a large blond man who was obviously rather
drunk. The Jews, it seemed, had been driving slowly along
the street, on the look-out for a pick-up, and had offered these
girls a ride. The two girls had accepted and got into the car.
At this moment, however, the blond man had intervened. He
was a Nazi, he told us, and as such felt it his mission to defend
the honour of all German women against the obscene anti-
Nordic menace. The two Jews didn’t seem in the least in-
timidated; they told the Nazi energetically to mind his own
business. Meanwhile, the girls, taking advantage of the row,
slipped out of the car and ran off down the street. The Nazi
then tried to drag one of the Jews with him to find a police-
man, and the Jew whose arm he had seized gave him an
uppercut which laid him sprawhng on his back. Before the
Nazi could get to his feet, both young men had jumped into
their car and driven away. The crowd dispersed slowly, argu-
ing. Very few of them sided openly with the Nazi: several
supported the Jews; but the majority confined themselves
to shaking their heads dubiously and murmuring: "‘Aller-
handr

When, three hours later, I passed the same spot, the Nazi
was still patrolling up and down, looking hungrily for more
German womanhood to rescue.

We have just got a letter from Frl. Mayr: Frl. Schroeder
called me in to listen to it. Frl. Mayr doesn’t like Holland.
She has been obliged to sing in a lot of second-rate cafes in
third-rate towns, and her bedroom is often badly heated. The
Dutch, she writes, have no culture; she has only met one
truly refined and superior gentleman, a widower. The wid-
ower tells her that she is really womanly woman — ^he has no
use for young chits of girls. He has shown his admiration for
her art by presenting her with a complete new set of under-
clothes.

Frl. Mayr has also had trouble with her colleagues. At one
town, a rival actress, jealous of Frl. Mayr s vocal powers,
tried to stab her in the eye with a hatpin. I can t help admir-
ing that actress’s courage. When Frl. Mayr had finished with

191

her, she was so badly injured that she couldn't appear on the
stage again for a week.

Last night, Fritz Wendel proposed a tour of “the dives.”
It was to be in the nature of a farewell visit, for the Police
have begun to take a great interest in these places. They are
frequently raided, and the names of their clients are written
down. There is even talk of a general Berlin clean-up.

I rather upset him by insisting on visiting the Salome,
which I had never seen. Fritz, as a connoisseur of night-life,
was most contemptuous. It wasn't even genuine, he told me.
The management run it entirely for the benefit of provincial
sightseers.

The Salome turned out to be very expensive and even
more depressing than I had imagined. A few stage lesbians
and some young men with plucked eyebrows lounged at the
bar, uttering occasional raucous guflFaws or treble hoots —
supposed, apparently, to represent the laughter of the
damned. The whole premises are painted gold and infemo-
red — crimson plush inches thick, and vast gilded mirrors.
It was pretty full. The audience consisted chiefly of re-
spectable middle-aged ti'adesmen and their families, ex-
claiming in good-humoured amazement: “Do they really?”
and “Well, I never!” We went out half-way through the
cabaret performance, after a young man in a spangled crin-
oline and jewelled breast-caps had painfully but success-
fully executed three splits.

At the entrance we met a party of American youths, very
drunk, wondering whether to go in. Their leader was a small
stocky young man in pince-nez, with an annoyingly promi-
nent jaw.

“Say,” he asked Fritz, “what's on here?”

“Men dressed as women,” Fritz grinned.

The little American simply couldn't believe it. “Men
dressed as women? As women hey? Do you mean they're
queerP^

192

"Eventually we^re all queer,” drawled Fritz solemnly, in
lugubrious tones. The young man looked us over slowly. He
had been running and was still out of breath. The others
grouped themselves awkwardly behind him, ready for any-
tihiing — though their callow, open-mouthed faces in the
greenish lamp-light looked a bit scared.

“You queer, too, hey?” demanded the Httle American, turn-
ing suddenly on me.

“Yes,” I said, “very queer indeed.”

He stood before me a moment, panting, thrusting out his
jaw, uncertain it seemed, whether he ought not to hit me in
the face. Then he turned, uttered some Hnd of wild college
battle-cry, and, followed by the others, rushed headlong into
the building.

“Ever been to that communist dive near the Zoo?” Fritz
asked me, as we were walking away from the Salome. “Even-
tually we should cast an eye in there. ... In six months,
maybe, well all be wearing red shirts. . . .”

I agreed. I was curious to know what Fritzs idea of a
“communist dive” would be like.

It was, in fact, a small whitewashed cellar. You sat on
long wooden benches at big bare tables; a dozen people to-
gether— like a school dining-hall. On the walls were scribbled
expressionist drawings involving actual newspaper clippings,
real playing-cards, nailed-on beer-mats, match-boxes, ciga-
rette cartons, and heads cut out of photographs. The
was full of students, dressed mostly with aggressive political
untidiness — ^the men in sailor s sweaters and stained baggy
trousers, the girls in ill-fitting jumpers, skirts held visibly to-
gether with safety-pins and carelessly knotted gaudy gipsy
scarves. The proprietress was smoking a cigar. The boy who
acted as a waiter lounged about with a cigarette between
his lips and slapped customers on the back when taking their
orders.

It was all thoroughly sham and gay and joUy: you couldnt

193

help feeling at home, immediately. Fritz, as usual, recognized
plenty of friends. He introduced me to three of them — a man
called Martin, an art student named Werner, and Inge, his
girl. Inge was broad and lively — she wore a Httle hat with
a feather in it which gave her a kind of farcical resemblance
to Henry the Eighth. While Werner and Inge chattered, Mar-
tin sat silent: he was thin and dark and hatchet-faced, with
the sardonically superior smile of the conscious conspirator.
Later in the evening, when Fritz and Werner and Inge had
moved down the table to join another party, Martin began
to talk about the coming civil war. When the war breaks out,
Martin explained, the communists, who have very few
machine-guns, will get command of the roof tops. They will
then keep the Police at bay with hand-grenades. It will only
be necessary to hold out for three days, because the Soviet
fleet will make an immediate dash for Swinemiinde and begin
to land troops. ‘1 spend most of my time now making bombs,”
Martin added. I nodded and grinned, very much embar-
rassed — ^uncertain whether he was making fun of me, or
deliberately committing some appalling indiscretion. He cer-
tainly wasn’t drunk, and he didba’t strike me as merely in-
sane.

Presently, a strikingly handsome boy of sixteen or seven-
teen came into the cafe. His name was Rudi. He was dressed
in a Russian blouse, leather shorts and despatch-rider s
boots, and he strode up to our table with all the heroic man-
nerisms of a messenger who returns successful from a desper-
ate mission. He had, however, no message of any kind to de-
liver. After his whirlwind entry, and a succession of curt,
martial handshakes, he sat down quite quietly beside us and
ordered a glass of tea.

This evening, I visited the “communist” cafe again. It is
really a fascinating little world of intrigue and counter-
intrigue. Its Napoleon is the sinister bomb-making Martin;

194

Werner is its Danton; Rudi its Joan of Arc. Everybody sus-
pects everybody else. Already Martin has warned me against
Werner: he is ‘politically unrehable’' — last summer he stole
the entire funds of a communist youth organization. And
Werner has warned me against Martin: he is either a Nazi
agent, or a police spy, or in the pay of the French Govern-
ment. In addition to this, both Martin and Werner earnestly
advised me to have nothing to do with Rudi — ^they absolutely
refused to say why.

But there was no question of having nothing to do with
Rudi. He planted himself down beside me and began talking
at once — a hurricane of enthusiasm. His favourite word is
Tcnorke’’: “Oh, rippingr He is a pathfinder. He wanted to
know what the boy scouts were hke in England. Had they
got the spirit of adventure? “All German boys are adventur-
ous. Adventure is ripping. Our Scoutmaster is a ripping man.
Last year he went to Lapland and lived in a hut, all through
the summer, alone. . . . Are you a communist?’'

“No. Are you?”

Rudi was pained.

“Of course! We all are, here. . . . Ill lend you some books,
if you like. . . . You ought to come and see our club-house.
It’s ripping. . . . We sing the Red Flag, and all the forbid-
den songs. , . . Will you teach me English? I want to leam
all languages.”

I asked 3 there were any girls in his pathfinder group. Rudi
was as shocked as if I’d said something really indecent.

“Women are no good,” he told me bitterly. “They spoil
everything. They haven’t got the spirit of adventure. Men
understand each other much better when they’re alone to-
gether. Uncle Peter (that’s our Scoutmaster) says womeir
should stay at home and mend socks. That’s all they’re fit
for!”

“Is Uncle Peter a communist, too?”

“Of course!” Rudi looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you
ask that?”

195

“Oh, no special reason,"" I replied hastily. “I think perhaps
I was mixing him up with somebody else. . .

This afternoon I travelled out to the reformatory to visit
one of my pupils, Herr Brink, who is a master there. He is
a small, broad-shouldered man, with the thin, dead-looking
fair hair, mild eyes, and bulging, over-heavy forehead of the
German vegetarian intellectual. He wears sandals and an
open-necked shirt. I found him in the gymnasium, giving
physical instruction to a class of mentally deficient children
— ^for the reformatory houses mental deficients as well as
juvenile delinquents. With a certain melancholy pride, he
pointed out the various cases: one little boy was suffering
from hereditary syphilis — ^he had a fearful squint; another,
the child of elderly drunkards, couldn’t stop laughing. They
clambered about the wall-bars like monkeys, laughing and
chattering, seemingly quite happy.

Then we went up to the workshop, where older boys in
blue overalls — all convicted criminals — ^were making boots.
Most of the boys looked up and grinned when Brink came
in, only a few were sullen. But I couldn’t look them in the
eyes. I felt horribly guilty and ashamed; I seemed, at that mo-
ment, to have become the sole representative of their gaolers,
of Capitalist Society, I wondered if any of them had actually
been arrested in the Alexander Casino, and, if so, whether
they recognized me.

We had lunch in the matron s room. Herr Brink apologized
for giving me the same food as the boys themselves ate —
potato soup with two sausages, and a dish of apples and
stewed prunes. I protested — ^as, no doubt, I was intended to
protest — ^that it was very good. And yet the thought of the
boys having to eat it, or any other kind of meal, in that build-
ing, made each spoonful stick in my throat. Institution food
has an indescribable, perhaps purely imaginary, taste. (One
of the most vivid and sickening memories of my own school
life is the smell of ordinary white bread.)

196

“You don t have any bars or locked gates here ” I said.
“I thought all reformatories had them. . . . Don t your boys
often run away?’'

“Hardly ever,” said Brink, and the admission seemed to
make him positively unhappy; he sank his head wearily in
his hands. “Where shall they run to? Here it is bad. At home
it is worse. The majority of them know that.”

“But isn’t there a kind of natural instinct for free-
doni?”

“Yes, you are right. But the boys soon lose it. The system
helps them to lose it. I think perhaps that, in Germans, this
instinct is never very strong.”

“You don’t have much trouble here, then?”

“Oh, yes. Sometimes. . . . Three months ago, a terrible
thing happened. One boy stole another boy’s overcoat. He
ask-ed for permission to go into the town — ^diat is allowed —
and possibly he meant to sell it. But the owner of the overcoat
followed him, and they had a fight. The boy to whom the
overcoat belonged took up a big stone and flung it at the
other boy; and this boy, feeling himself hurt, deliberately
smeared dirt into the wound, hoping to make it worse and so
escape punishment. The wound did get worse. In three days
the boy died of blood-poisoning. And when the other boy
heard of this he killed himself with a kitchen knife. . .
Brink sighed deeply: “Sometimes I almost despair,” he added.
“It seems as if there were a kind of badness, a disease, in-
fecting the world to-day.”

“But what can you really do for these boys?” I asked.

“Very little. We teach them a trade. Later, we try to find
them work — ^which is almost impossible. If they have work
in the neighbourhood, they can still sleep here at nights.
. . . The Principal believes that their lives can be changed
through the teachings of the Christian religion. I’m afraid I
cannot feel this. The problem is not so simple. I’m afraid that
most of them, if they cannot get work, will take to crime.
After all, people cannot be ordered to starve.”

“Isn’t there any alternative?”

197

Brink rose and led me to the window.

“You see those two buildings? One is the engineering-
works, the other is the prison. For the boys of this district
there used to be two alternatives. . . . But now the works
are bankrupt. Next week they will close down.”

• • •

This morning I went to see Rudfs club-house, which is
also the oflSce of a pathfinders’ magazine. The editor and
scoutmaster, Uncle Peter, is a haggard, youngish man, with
a parchment-coloured face and deeply sunken eyes, dressed
in corduroy jacket and shorts. He is evidently Rudi’s idol.
The only time Rudi will stop talking is when Uncle Peter
has something to say. They showed me dozens of photo-

g raphs of boys, all taken with the camera tilted upwards,
om beneath, so that they look like epic giants, in profile
against enormous clouds. The magazine itself has articles on
hunting, tracking, and preparing food — all written in super-
enthusiastic style, with a curious underlying note of hysteria,
as though the actions described were part of a religious or
erotic ritual. There were half-a-dozen other boys in the
room with us: all of them in a state of heroic semi-nudity,
wearing the shortest of shorts and the thinnest of shirts or
singlets, although the weather is so cold.

When I had finished looking at the photographs, Rudi took
me into the club meeting-room. Long coloured banners hung
down the walls, embroidered with initials and mysterious
totem devices. At one end of the room was a low table covered
with a crimson embroidered cloth — a. kind of altar. On the
table were candles in brass candlesticks.

"We light them on Thursdays,” Rudi explained, ‘when we
have our camp-fire palaver. Then we sit round in a ring on
the floor, and sing songs and tell stories.”

Above the table wi3i the candlesticks was a sort of icon —
the framed drawing of a young pathfinder of unearthly
beauty, gazing sternly into the far distance, a banner in
his hand. The whole place made me feel profoundly un-

198

comfortable. I excused myself and got away as soon as I
could.

• • •

Overheard in a cafe: a young Nazi is sitting with his girl;
they are discussing the future of the Party. The Nazi is drunk.

"Oh, I know we shall win, all right,” he exclaims impa-
tiently, "but that’s not enough!” He thumps the table with
his fist: "Blood must flow!”

The girl strokes his arm reassuringly. She is trying to get
him to come home. "But, of course, it’s going to flow, darling,”
she coos soothingly, "the Leaders promised that in our
programme.”

To-day is "Silver Sunday ” The streets are crowded with
shoppers. All along the Tauentzienstrasse, men, women and
boys are hawking postcards, flowers, song-books, hair-oil,
bracelets. Christmas-trees are stacked for sale along the cen-
tral path between the tram-lines. Uniformed S.A. men rattle
their collecting-boxes. In the side-streets, lorry-loads of
police are waiting; for any large crowd, nowadays, is capable
of turning into a political riot. The Salvation Army have a big
illuminated tree on the Wittenbergplatz, with a blue electric
star. A group of students were standing round it, making
sarcastic remarks. Among them I recognized Werner, from
the "communist” cafe.

"This time next year,” said Werner, "that star will have
changed its colour!” He laughed violently — ^he was in an
excited, slightly hysterical mood. Yesterday, he told me,
he’d had a great adventure: "You see, three other comrades
and myself decided to make a demonstration at the Labour
Exchange in Neukolln, I had to speak, and the others were
to see I wasn’t interrupted. We went round there at about
half-past ten, when the bureau’s most crowded. Of course,
we’d planned it aU beforehand — each of the comrades had to
hold one of the doors, so that none of the clerks in the oflBce
could get out. There they were, cooped up like rabbits. . . .
Of course, we couldn’t prevent their telephoning for the

199

Police, we knew that. We reckoned we’d got six or seven
minutes . . . Well, as soon as the doors were fixed, I jumped
on to a table. I just yelled out whatever came into my head
— don’t know what I said. They liked it, anyhow. . . .
In half a minute I had them so excited I got quite scared. I
was afraid they’d break into the office and lynch somebody.
There was a ffiie old shindy, I can tell you! But just when
things were beginning to look properly lively, a comrade came
up from below to tell us the Police were there already — just
getting out of their car. So we had to make a dash for it. . . .
I think they’d have got us, only the crowd was on our side,
and wouldn’t let them through until we were out by the other
door, into the street. . . Werner finished breathlessly. “I
tell you, Christopher,” he added, “the capitalist system can’t
possibly last much longer now. The workers are on the move!”

Early this evening I was in the Biilowstrasse. There had
been a big Nazi meeting at the Sportpalast, and groups of
men and boys were just coming away from it, in their brown
or black uniforms. Walking along the pavement ahead of me
were three S.A. men. They all carried Nazi banners on their
shoulders, like rifles, rolled tight round the staves — ^the
banner-staves had sharp metal points, shaped into arrow-
heads.

All at once, the three S.A. men came face to face with a
youth of seventeen or eighteen, dressed in civilian clothes,
who was hurrying along in the opposite direction. I heard
one of the Nazis shout: “That’s him!” and immediately all
three of them flung themselves upon the young man. He
uttered a scream, and tried to dodge, but they were too quick
for him. In a moment they had jostled him into the shadow of
a house entrance, and were standing over him, kicking him
and stabbing at him with the sharp metal points of their
banners. All this happened with such incredible speed that
I could hardly believe my eyes — already, the three S.A. men
had left their victim, and were barging their way through

200

the crowd; they made for the stairs which led up to the
station of the Overhead Railway.

Another passer-by and myself were the first to reach the
doorway where the young man was lying. He lay huddled
crookedly in the comer, like an abandoned sack. As they
picked him up, I got a sickening glimpse of his face — ^his left
eye was poked half out, and blood poured from the wound.
He wasn t dead. Somebody volunteered to take him to the
hospital in a taxi.

By this time, dozens of people were looking on. They
seemed surprised, but not particularly shocked — ^this sort of
thing happens too often, nowadays. *^Allerhand. . . r they
murmured. Twenty yards away, at the Potsdamerstrasse cor-
ner, stood a group of heavily armed policemen. With their
chests out, and their hands on their revolver belts, they mag-
nificently disregarded the whole affair.

Werner has become a hero. His photograph was in the
Rote Fahne a few days ago, captioned: “Another victim of
the Police blood-bath.*' Yesterday, which was New Years
day, I went to visit him in hospital.

Just after Christmas, it seems, there was a streetfight near
the Stettiner Bahnhof. Werner was on the edge of the crowd,
not knowing what the fight was about. On the off-chance
that it might be something political, he began yelling: “Red
Front!” A policeman tried to arrest him. Wemer kicked the
policeman in the stomach. The policeman drew his revolver
and shot Werner three times through the leg. When he had
finished shooting, he called another policeman, and together
they carried Wemer into a taxi. On the way to the police-
station, the policemen hit him on the head with their trun-
cheons, until he fainted. When he has sufficiently recovered,
he will, most probably, be prosecuted.

He told me all this with the greatest satisfaction, sitting
up in bed surroimded by his admiring friends, including
Rudx and Inge, in her Henry the Eighdi hat Around him,

201

on the blanket, lay his press-cuttings. Somebody had care-
fully underlined each mention of Werner s name with a red
pencil.

To-day, January 22nd, the Nazis held a demonstration
on the Biilowplatz, in front of the Karl Liebknecht House.
For the last week the communists have been trying to get the
demonstration forbidden; they say it is simply intended as
a provocation — as, of course, it was. I went along to watch
it with Frank, the newspaper correspondent.

As Frank himself said afterwards, this washt really a Nazi
demonstration at all, but a Police demonstration — there were
at least two policemen to every Nazi present. Perhaps Gen-
eral Schleicher only allowed the march to take place in order
to show who are the real masters of Berlin. Everybody says
he’s going to proclaim a military dictatorship.

But the real masters of Berlin are not the Police, or the
Army, and certainly not the Nazis. The masters of Berlin are
the workers — despite all the propaganda I’ve heard and read,
all the demonstrations I’ve attended, I only realized this, for
the first time to-day. Comparatively few of the hundreds of
people in the streets round the Biilowplatz can have been
organized communists, yet you had the feehng that every
single one of them was united against this march. Somebody
began to sing the ‘International,” and, in a moment, everyone
had joined in — even the women with their babies, watching
from top-storey windows. The Nazis slunk past, marching
as fast as they knew how, between their double rows of pro-
tectop. Most of them kept their eyes on the ground, or glared
glassily ahead: a few attempted sickly, furtive grins. When
the procession had passed, an elderly fat little S.A. man, who
had somehow got left behind, came panting along at the
double, desperately scared at finding himself alone, and try-
ing vainly to catch up with the rest. The whole crowd roared
with laughter.

During the demonstration nobody was allowed on the

202

Biilowplatz itself. So the crowd surged uneasily about, and
things began to look nasty. The police, brandishing their
rifles, ordered us back; some of the less experienced ones,
getting rattled, made as if to shoot. Then an armoured car
appeared, and started to turn its machine-gun slowly in our
direction. There was a stampede into house doorways and
cafes; but no sooner had the car moved on, than everybody
rushed out into the street again, shouting and singing. It was
too much like a naughty schoolboy’s game to be seriously
alarming. Frank enjoyed himself enormously, grinning from
ear to ear, and hopping about, in his flapping overcoat and
huge owlish spectacles, like a mocking, ungainly bird.

Only a week since I wrote the above. Schleicher has re-
signed. The monocles did their stuff. Hitler has formed a
cabinet with Hugenberg. Nobody thinks it can last till the
spring.

The newspapers are becoming more and more like copies
of a school magazine. There is nothing in them but new rules,
new punishments, and lists of people who have been ‘Tcept
in." This morning, Goring has invented three fresh varieties
of high treason.

Every evening, I sit in the big half -empty artists’ caf6 by
the Memorial Church, where the Jews and left-wing intel-
lectuals bend their heads together over the marble tables,
speaking in low, scared voices. Many of them know that they
will certainly be arrested— if not to-day, then to-morrow or
next week. So they are polite and mild with each other, and
raise their hats and enquire after their colleagues’ families.
Notorious literary tiffs of several years’ standing are for-
gotten.

Almost every evening, the S.A. men come into the caf4.
Sometimes they are only collecting money; everybody is com-
pelled to give something. Sometimes they have come to

203

make an arrest. One evening a Jewish writer, who was pres-
ent, ran into the telephone-box to ring up the Police. The
Nazis dragged him out, and he was taken away. Nobody
moved a finger. You could have heard a pin drop, till they
were gone.

The foreign newspaper correspondents dine every night at
the same little Italian restaurant, at a big round table, in the
corner. Everybody else in the restaurant is watching them
and trying to overhear what they are saying. If you have a
piece of news to bring them — ^the details of an arrest, or the
address of a victim whose relatives might be interviewed —
then one of the journalists leaves the table and walks up and
down with you outside, in the street.

A young communist I know was arrested by the S.A. men,
taken to a Nazi barracks, and badly knocked about. After
three or four days, he was released and went home. Next
morning there was a knock at the door. The communist
hobbled over to open it, his arm in a sling — and there stood
a Nazi with a collecting-box. At the sight of him the com-
munist completely lost his temper. “Isht it enough,*' he
yelled, “that you beat me up? And you dare to come and ask
me for money?**

But the Nazi only grinned. “Now, now, comradel No
political s(juabbling! Remember, we*re living in the Third
Reich! Were all brothers! You must try and drive that silly
political hatred from your heart!**

This evening I went into the Russian tea-shop in the
Kleiststrasse, and there was D. For a moment I really thought
I must be dreaming. He greeted me quite as usual, beaming
all over his face.

“Good God!** I whispered. “What on earth are you doing
here?**

D. beamed. “You thought I might have gone abroad?**

“WeU, naturaUy. . . .**

“But the situation nowadays is so interesting. . .

204

I laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it, certainly. . . .
But isn’t it awfully dangerous for you?”

D. merely smiled. Then he turned to the girl he was sitting
with and said, “This is Mr, Isherwood. . . . You can speak
quite openly to him. He hates the Nazis as much as we do.
Oh, yes I Mr. Isherwood is a confirmed anti-fascist!”

He laughed very heartily and slapped me on the back.
Several people who were sitting near us overheard him.
Their reactions were curious. Either they simply couldn’t
believe their ears, or they were so scared that they pretended
to hear nothing, and went on sipping their tea in a state of
deaf horror. I have seldom felt so uncomfortable in my whole
life*.

( D.’s technique appears to have had its points, all the same.
He was never arrested. Two months later, he successfully
crossed the frontier into Holland.)

This morning, as I was walking down the Biilowstrasse,
the Nazis were raiding the house of a small liberal pacifist
publisher. They had brought a lorry and were piling it with
the publisher’s books. The driver of the lorry mockingly read
out the titles of the books to the crowd:

“Nie Wieder Kriegr he shouted, holding up one of them
by the comer of the cover, disgustedly, as though it were
a nasty kind of reptile. Everybody roared with laughter.

“ ‘No More War!’ ” echoed a fat, well-dressed woman, with
a scornful, savage laugh. “What an idea!”

At present, one of my regular pupils is Herr N., a police
chief under the Weimar regime. He comes to me every day.
He wants to brush up his English, for he is leaving very soon
to take up a job in the United States. The curious 3iing about
these lessons is that they are all given while we are driving
about the streets in Herr N.’s enormous closed car. Herr N.
himself never comes into our house: he sends up his chauf*

205

£eur to fetch me, and the car moves off at once. Sometimes
we stop for a few minutes at the edge of the Tiergarten, and
stroll up and down the paths — the chauffeur always follow-
ing us at a respectful distance.

Herr N. talks to me chiefly about his family. He is worried
about his son, who is very delicate, and whom he is obliged
to leave behind, to undergo an operation. His wife is delicate,
too. He hopes the journey wont tire her. He describes her
symptoms, and the kind of medicine she is taking. He* tells
me stories about his son as a little boy. In a tactful, imper-
sonal way we have become quite intimate. Herr N. is always
charmingly polite, and listens gravely and carefully to my
explanations of grammatical points. Behind everyming* he
says I am aware of an immense sadness.

We never discuss politics; but I know that Herr N. must
be an enemy of the Nazis, and, perhaps, even in hourly
danger of arrest. One morning, when we were driving along
the Unter den Linden, we passed a group of self-important
S.A. men, chatting to each other and blocking the whole
pavement. Passers-by were obliged to walk in the gutter.
Herr N. smiled faintly and sadly: “One sees some queer
sights in the streets nowadays.” That was his only comment.

Sometimes he will bend forward to the window and regard
a building or a square with a mournful fixity, as if to impress
its image upon his memory and to bid it good-bye.

To-morrow I am going to England. In a few weeks I shall
return, but only to pick up my things, before leaving Berlin
altogether.

Poor Frl. Sdiroeder is inconsolable: “I shall never find
another gentleman like you, Herr Issyvoo — always so punc-
tual with the rent. . . . Tm sure I don^t know what makes
you want to leave Berlin, all of a sudden, like this. . .

It’s no use trying to explain to her, or talking politics. Al-
ready she is adapting herself, as she will adapt herself to
every new regime. This morning I even heard her talking

206

reverently about ‘‘Der Fiihrer*^ to the porter s wife. If any-
body were to remind her that, at the elections last November,
she voted communist, she would probably deny it hotly, and
in perfect good faith. She is merely acclimatizing herself, in
accordance with a natural law, like an animal which changes
its coat for the winter. Thousands of people like Frl. Schroe-
der are acclimatizing themselves. After all, whatever govern-
ment is in power, they are doomed to live in this town.

To-day the sun is brilliantly shining; it is quite mild and
warm. I go out for my last morning walk, without an overcoat
or hat. The sun shines, and Hitler is master of this city. The
sun shines, and dozens of my friends — ^my pupils at the
Workers’ School, the men and women I met at the LA.H. —
are in prison, possibly dead. But it isn’t of them that I am
thinking — ^the clear-headed ones, the purposeful, the heroic;
they recognized and accepted the risks. I am thinking of poor
Rudi, in his absurd Russian blouse. Rudi’s make-believe,
story-book game has become earnest; the Nazis will play it
with him. The Nazis wont laugh at him; they’ll take him on
trust for what he pretended to be. Perhaps at this very mo-
ment Rudi is being tortured to death,

I catch sight of my face in the mirror of a shop, and am
shocked to see that I am smiling. You can’t help smiling, in
•►such beautiful weather. The trams are going up and down
the Kleiststrasse, just as usual. They, and the people on the
pavement, and the teacosy dome of the Nollendoifplatz sta-
tion have an air of curious familiarity, of striking resemblance
to something one remembers as normal and pleasant in the
past — ^like a very good photograph.

No. Even now I can’t altogether believe that any of this
has really happened. . . .

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